A slight change
by Kindle-the-Stars
Summary: A slight change causes the events of the 1st series to unfold in a different manner... When Jack Thompson brings Sheldon McFee into the SSR he mentions the dark haired, British woman who attacked him and cuffed him to a chair; realising that it's Peggy Carter, Jack confronts her about her involvement in the case and the two of them start to work together. Multi-chapter Cartson fic
1. Bridge and tunnel

It was the middle of the night by the time Jack Thompson walked Sheldon McFee into the SSR. The bullpen was deserted; Agents Li and Yauch, who were on the night-shift, had been called out to New Jersey to help the Chief with the body (identified at the scene by Mr McFee as being Leet Brannis, his employer) while Jack dealt with questioning and charging McFee.

They headed straight to the interrogation room; Jack dropped the file they had made up on everything Van Ert had said earlier onto the table and then deftly uncuffed one of McFee's wrists in order to lock the cuff around the small metal hook that was embedded into the table instead.

"Quite frankly, Mr McFee, it's getting late and I want to go home," Jack said in a casual, drawling voice as he walked around the table, folding his tall frame down into his own seat. "You've already been beaten up once tonight and I'm sure you don't want another pounding ... so let's try to get this over with as little fuss as possible," he added, casting the bruised and battered man sitting opposite him a smile that was just a shade off friendly. The threat had been implicit in his words; his knuckles still ached from pressing Van Ert earlier and he didn't much fancy another interrogation, but he would do what needed to be done.

"Hey man, I get it," McFee said, shrugging as best as possible while attached to the table and gesturing to himself. "Small fish, big pond," he said, aptly summing up his role. "All I did was drive a truck in exchange for a payout. I'm not stupid enough to try to protect them."

"Coulda fooled me," Jack said dryly, though in reality he was pleased the man was willing to talk. He opened the file to a new page and picked up his pen, knowing that they were alone in the SSR and it would fall to him to record McFee's words since there was no one behind the glass in the observation room. "Let's start with this woman who attacked you," he suggested, his pen poised to write. "Is she working for Brannis too?"

"I'd never seen her before tonight and we didn't exactly stop to chat," McFee admitted, looking chagrined at the fact that a dame had managed to thoroughly clean his clock and cuff his ass to a chair. "She came in, beat me seven ways to Sunday, tied me up, and then left with the truck," he told him simply. He tilted his head thoughtfully to one side and then half shrugged again. "Think she was British though, that's all I got," he added with a grimace.

Jack looked up from the file, a crease appearing between his brows. "... British?" he repeated, the smallest beginnings of a suspicion taking root in his mind.

"Yeah," McFee confirmed, his expression still pained. "When I came to she was muttering to herself about cups of tea and civilised interrogations," he said, which was hardly enough to pin a positive identification.

Thompson leant back in his chair and tapped the end of his pen on the table several times, frowning deeply at McFee. "What did she look like?" he wanted to know; he knew Carter had been in the observation room when they had bought in Van Ert (it had been down to her quick thinking at the Roxxon offices that they had nabbed him in the first place) but she was gone by the time he had finished with the full press. Dooley said she had gone home and he hadn't seen her since – in all honesty, he had been pleased that she hadn't watched the interrogation, his actions hadn't exactly been suitable for a ladies eyes.

"Dark hair, red lipstick, solid right hook," McFee told him plainly, making Jack clench his jaw – that didn't mean anything necessarily, there were no doubt plenty of women who matched that description, but now the idea was firmly planted in his mind he couldn't shake it.

He looked briefly over his shoulder to the glass that led to the observation room, wondering if they were still alone or if this whole conversation was being watched. "Anything else about her?" Jack wanted to know, turning back to McFee; he needed to confirm this suspicion one way or another.

McFee thought for a moment and then shook his head slightly. "Can't tell you much more than that, I was slightly distracted by all the punching and being hit with a table," he said sardonically, clearly feeling rather sorry for himself after his beating.

"Would you recognise her if you saw her again?" Thompson pressed firmly, still scowling deeply at the cuffed man and in no mood for humour.

McFee shrugged and Jack instantly got to his feet. He left the interrogation room without so much as another word and closed the door behind him, knowing McFee couldn't move since he was cuffed to the table. He stopped to check the observation room first, sighing faintly in relief when he saw it was still empty, and locked the door behind him with a key from his pocket so that no one could come in to watch the interrogation without him knowing. Jack then headed towards one of the store rooms at the back of the bullpen, where all of the files were kept. It took some rooting, but he eventually located Peggy's file; he opened it and flicked through the pages until he found a small black and white picture of her.

He went back to the interrogation room, where McFee was pulling slightly on his cuffed hand, evidently twitchy at having been left alone for so long with no explanation.

"This her?" Jack demanded, holding the picture up for the other man to see.

Sheldon took one look at it before nodding. "Oh yeah, that's her," he said instantly, grimacing once again and glancing questioningly up at Jack. "Who is she?"

Thompson clenched his jaw and looked down at the small picture in his hand, wondering what the hell he was going to do with this new information, wondering what the hell Carter had even gotten herself into here. There was a long silence, then he slowly pocketed the picture. "... No one you need to concern yourself with," he told McFee simply; he would deal with this.

* * *

The next day Peggy sighed to herself as she packed up her belongings to go home for the evening; the stitches in her thigh still hurt like the blazes and her day had been thoroughly unproductive. In between filing and coffee-runs she had been looking into the symbol that Mr Brannis had drawn in the dirt as he died, but thus far it was looking like the symbol had a specific relevance to Leviathan and didn't have any kind of corroboration to its standardised meaning of a broken heart, which meant she had been hitting dead ends all day. She had one more book among her belongings at Howard's penthouse (though having passed Mrs Fry's stringent interview that morning she would shortly be moving into The Griffith) disguised as the complete works of Shakespeare that she could consult, but she was not holding out much hope.

The only positive in the situation was that the pictures from the nightclub had turned up negative, with not one clear shot of her face. She had purposefully played dumb that morning when the Chief had asked her about DiMaggio so that they wouldn't look at the pictures too carefully, but she couldn't help but notice that Agent Thompson in particular had been watching her closely all day, downright staring at times.

"Carter."

 _Speak of the devil,_ she thought to herself as she walked passed Thompson's desk on her way down the bullpen and he called out to her. She paused to see what he wanted and he instantly grabbed his jacket and hat, gesturing towards the elevator as he fell into step alongside her. "Come on, let's grab a drink," he suggested casually as they walked, his drawling voice just a shade off neutral.

"No, thank you," she retorted crisply as she stopped and pushed the button for the elevator, wondering if the fact that he had been planning on asking her out was why he had been staring most of the day.

"I wasn't asking," Thompson said firmly, putting his hat low on his head and pulling on his grey suit jacket one sleeve at a time.

Peggy frowned at him, utterly unimpressed with his whole bearing and his arrogance in simply assuming that she would go out with him despite her refusal. "Didn't your mother ever teach you manners, Agent Thompson?" she said pointedly, casting a glare in his direction as the elevator doors opened. "I don't want to go for a drink with you."

She made to walk into the elevator and he suddenly grabbed her upper arm in a surprisingly tight grip, keeping her in place. She instantly opened her mouth to berate him for man-handling her, but he spoke over her. "See, I wanna discuss how you beat us to Jersey, knocked McFee out like a light, and then took off with a truck full of Stark's explosives," Thompson said in a low and dangerous voice, studying her intently as he maintained his grip on her arm. " … But if you'd rather do that in the Chief's office or the interrogation room as opposed to over a scotch, then that's fine by me," he added dryly; he released her pointedly and raised his hand, gesturing back towards the bullpen as if to imply 'ladies first.'

Peggy raised her chin, staring him down and not betraying even a hint of fear even while her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest. She didn't know how he had found out about her involvement in the investigation, but she knew that denying it would be fruitless; Jack was not the type to jump to conclusions without evidence, he had to have something solid to pin this on her. "By all means then, let's go for a drink," she said coolly, making him blink in surprise at her acceptance. She tilted her head to one side. "Did you have somewhere in mind?"

* * *

Jack took Peggy to a bar a few blocks away that he knew wouldn't be too busy, but also not so quiet that their conversation would be overheard. He was on edge the whole walk there, constantly shooting glances her way as her heels clicked alongside him. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting when he had confronted her – a denial, playing dumb, anything – but her calmly and coolly agreeing to talk had not been it.

They took their seats at the corner of the bar and Jack flagged over the bartender. "One scotch on the rocks; she'll have something fruity," he said lazily, ordering for her out of habit from past dates with various women.

 _"She_ will have a bourbon, neat," Peggy said curtly to the bartender as she settled into her high stool, elegantly crossing her ankles and tucking them behind the footrest. "And make it a double," she added, making him shoot a surprised look her way.

He waited until they both had their drinks and took a bracing sip of his scotch, preparing himself for the conversation to come. Placing his drink back on the bar, he rubbed his hand briefly over the lower half of his face. "So, spill," he ordered, finally turning to look at her.

Peggy was already watching him carefully, her dark eyes inscrutable. "Before I say anything I want you to tell me something," she said plainly, in a clipped tone that brooked no argument.

Jack shook his head. "You ain't in any position to be making demands, sweetheart," he told her in a drawling voice, picking up his drink once more. Peggy simply waited for several long seconds, still staring at him with those impossibly dark eyes of hers; he eventually sighed exasperatedly and gestured for her to ask whatever it was that she wanted to know as he took another bracing sip of scotch.

"Why didn't you go straight to Dooley?" she questioned simply, never once taking her eyes from him.

He swallowed hard against the burn of the alcohol. "Thought I'd give you the chance to explain yourself," he admitted honestly, tilting the glass slightly to stare down into the amber liquid. He'd been wresting with what he should do since the night before and had eventually come to the conclusion that he didn't necessarily want to get Carter in trouble - rather he wanted to know what the _hell_ was going on and maybe help get her out of this if she had somehow gotten in over her head.

But first he had to know the full story.

"I'm grateful," she confessed, actually sounding genuine. "The last thing I need is the SSR running around after me like headless chickens." Jack looked at her once more, waiting for her to explain herself now that he had met her own demand. She did not disappoint; after taking a small sip of her bourbon, evidently accustomed to it since she didn't once flinch at the taste, she spoke softly, "I've been conducting my own investigation," she admitted in a quiet voice.

"Why?" he demanded, wanting to know far more than just that.

"Because I believe that Howard is innocent," she said plainly, with all the naïve conviction of someone who genuinely believed what they were saying.

" _Jesus_ , Carter," Jack said, sounding slightly disgusted even to his own ears; he'd half hoped that she had somehow been roped into this against her will, not that she had turned vigilante against the SSR to help Howard Stark. "How can you be that _stupid_?" he asked her, unable to believe that she was so blind she couldn't see the truth. He put his drink down to face her properly. "Stark fled his trial on Capitol Hill -"

"Because they refused to even _consider_ the possibility that his vault was broken into," Peggy interrupted sharply, evidently taking umbrage at his tone. "While they were blowing hot air he knew that weapons that were _beyond_ dangerous were being sold on the black market."

Jack briefly clenched his jaw, irked at having been interrupted – irked at her utter conviction that Stark was innocent. "Are you in contact with Stark?" he wanted to know; she raised her chin slightly, but didn't reply. " _Carter_ ," he pressed in a slight snarl, guessing the truth easily enough from her silence.

"I have seen him, yes, but I do not know his current whereabouts nor do I have a direct line of communication," she admitted coolly. Well that was something, at least – if she'd known his whereabouts then he would have had no choice but to bring her in to get to Stark regardless of her own investigation.

He took a breath, still not knowing what the hell he was going to do with the knowledge that Peggy was working with Stark; what she had already confessed could see her in prison, possibly even the electric chair, and he didn't even know the whole story yet – he had thought that she had just been involved last night with McFee and the truck, not that she was conducting an investigation of her own. "You wanna explain to me what happened with the nitramine last night? How you managed to beat us there?" he asked, then drained the last of his drink in preparation for her words, knowing that he probably wouldn't like the answer if the way their conversation had gone so far was any indication.

She didn't reply instantly, clearly thinking carefully of what she wanted to say, and he shot her a look in response to her silence as he put his empty glass back on the bar with more force than was necessary. "I'm asking _nicely_ here," he reminded her, with more than just a hint of bitterness in his voice. "You did just confess to what is tantamount to treason."

Peggy's jaw briefly worked, as if she was biting the inside of her cheek, then she spoke once more, "I had a rather early start yesterday," she said eventually. "Prior to joining you at the Roxxon offices I had been at the dairy harbour with the vita-ray detector. I knew from the Roxxon explosion that a milk truck was being used to move the explosives -"

"You were there too? Roxxon?" Jack interrupted sharply, since they hadn't known about the milk truck until he had questioned Van Ert.

Peggy nodded; Jack shook his head slightly and exhaled a shaky breath, unable to believe how much she had been doing behind their backs. "Jesus, next you'll be telling me that you were the blonde in the night club," he muttered to himself, seriously considering another drink to get him through this.

There was a long, poignant silence in which she simply stared pointedly at him, one eyebrow partially raised.

"... God- _dammit_ Carter," he suddenly snapped in utter exasperation, abruptly remembering how she had been in the office pouring them coffee when he had been talking about Raymond's predilection for blondes – she must have heard everything he'd said and acted accordingly.

He flicked his fingers to get the bartenders attention. "Two more," he ordered brusquely, knowing he would need it to get through the conversation. He waited until they both had fresh drinks in front of them, though she had scarcely made a dent in her first one. "... You killed Raymond?" he asked in a hushed voice, staring at her as he remembered finding Raymond's body in his office; he had known she was involved, but to discover that she had murdered a man in cold blood -

"I didn't kill anybody," she said sharply, looking thoroughly annoyed that he would think such a thing. "I left with Raymond unconscious and the device in my possession, which I later diffused in my bathroom -"

Jack downed his second drink in one, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"- But I was followed by a man in a green suit, who I'm guessing is the one who killed Raymond after I left," Peggy told him, staring at him intently.

He swallowed his large mouthful of liquor. "Go on," he ordered weakly, his voice husky from the burn.

She huffed slightly, but nevertheless followed his order. "Using the materials in the diffused nitramine I was able to track its source back to the Roxxon refinery, where Van Ert had a production line of the explosives," she said in the concise and descriptive manner of one presenting a report to a superior. "Brannis blew the place before I could bring him in. The man in the green suit also hijacked the milk truck on our way back from Jersey last night, killing Mr Brannis."

Jack opened the file that he had bought with him from the office, finding one of the fake passports Dooley and Krezminsky had found at the Hotel Cosmopolitan thanks to the key left at the crime scene. "This him?" he asked, holding the passport up to her and tapping his fingers against the picture.

She glanced at it and nodded crisply. "Yes," she confirmed plainly, then leant slightly towards him, speaking in a low voice. "Thompson, Brannis was _frightened_. He mentioned … a person, or an organisation, I am not sure what, called Leviathan," she told him, making him frown at her. "He had double-crossed them to steal the weapons from Howard and wanted protection from the SSR."

"Wait, wait, time out," he said, holding up a hand to stop her as his scowl deepened even further. "... Brannis _confessed_ to stealing the weapons?" he checked, raising a brow at her and wanting to make sure he had heard that right.

Peggy nodded and Jack exhaled a breath, staring down at the bar – that was a major game changer, they had been working on the assumption that Stark had staged the break in on his own vault in order to sell weapons to enemies of the United States.

There was a stretch silence in which she simply let him think. If Leet Brannis had stolen the weapons it meant that Stark was innocent of the break in, and if Brannis had indeed double-crossed this Leviathan, who ever they were, it meant that _they_ had been the ones after the weapons in the first place.

They were looking at it from the wrong angle, Jack thought with a deep grimace. Brannis had been Russian (he had spent the afternoon pulling together everything they could find on him, including spending half an hour on the phone to an old friend in an embassy in Moscow) so it stood to reason that this Leviathan, whether they were a person or an organisation, was Russian too. Relations with the Reds had steadily been growing colder after the war had finished, especially with Russia emerging as a dominant power, and the knowledge that a Russian had stolen Stark's highly destructive weapons was disturbing to say the least.

This could be big, potentially much bigger than just Howard Stark, he realised, frowning deeply.

He sighed and, after a long moment, looked up at her once more. "You weren't alone last night, someone drove you out there," he said, assuming that there was still more to her story and guessing that she had to have a partner since she hadn't walked back from Jersey last night. "Who's your ally? Is it Stark?"

She frowned at him, looking slightly troubled. "I told you before, I don't know Howard's whereabouts," she reiterated, deftly avoiding the question.

"Then who are you working with?" he wanted to know.

Peggy took a breath and coolly avoided his gaze. "Now _that_ I will not reveal," she said firmly, calmly picking up her drink to take another sip.

"Carter ..." he said warningly, his brow furrowed as he stared her down.

She looked unimpressed with his threatening tone. "What are you going to do, _beat_ it out of me?" she asked somewhat cattily as she put her glass back down on the bar and turned to glare at him once more.

Jack clenched his jaw, making a concerted effort to control his tone and biting back the urge to snap angrily at her in response. "Look, I am trying _very_ hard to understand -"

"And I am _giving_ you a full account," she said impatiently, evidently unwilling to bend on this and betray her partners confidence. "Minus the name of my partner."

They held each others gazes for a long moment, neither of them backing down – Jack was the first to look away, dropping his gaze down to the bar with a faint huff.

There was another silence as he thought through what she had told him. He was well aware that she had done good work under the radar and had potentially unearthed something important here while they had been chasing after Stark.

"... Stark didn't blow Roxxon, nor did he job his own vault," he said finally, surmising what he had learned so far.

"No," Peggy confirmed, continuing to watch him.

Bracing one elbow on the bar, Jack rubbed one hand over the lower half of his face, still thinking hard. "This is bigger than I thought," he admitted to himself, wondering who, exactly, this Leviathan was and what endgame they were playing – they had to have been after Stark's weapons for a reason, and whatever that reason was it probably wasn't good for the Allies. "And we clearly need to look at it from a new angle ..."

He glanced at her speculatively; she had known everything they had before they did, working alone – Dooley had given him the lead on this case and if he wanted it solved then it was becoming increasingly obvious that he would need her, but he would be damned before he let her continue on alone. "What's your next move?" he wanted to know, genuinely curious about how she planned to proceed.

Peggy was frowning thoughtfully at his question. "Mr Brannis drew a symbol in the dirt before he died. I've spent the day looking at codes and glyphs but it has proven to be something of a dead end," she said frustratedly. Jack instantly grabbed a napkin from the bar and a pen from his pocket, passing them over to her to draw the symbol, which she did as she spoke – it was a heart with a wavy line through it. She was no longer tense, as she had been at the start of their conversation, rather instead she sounded like she was discussing ideas with a partner. "Demidov was Leviathan's clean-up crew, Brannis is the one I need to focus on to find the weapons," she continued, tapping her pen on the napkin, clearly thinking aloud. "He confessed to breaking into the vault, if I can figure out how he did that then maybe I can find a trail to follow …"

"You definitely trust him?" Jack wanted to check before proceeding any further with his half-cocked plan to help her with this investigation; she glanced up at him, confused. "Stark," he clarified, biting out the name.

"I do," she said instantly, making Jack wonder what, exactly, the nature of their relationship was. She shook her head slightly. "But the SSR is myopic when it comes to Howard; I know that there was no way they will even consider his innocence unless I present them with irrefutable proof."

"Then I guess we find irrefutable proof, the vault sounds like a good place to start," Jack agreed dryly, tilting his empty glass to look at the amber dregs in the bottom. He was well aware that Stark was still in contempt of Congress and possibly even guilty of selling weapons to enemies of the United States - but Leviathan had been the ones to clean out his vault, which meant that highly dangerous and volatile weapons were in the hands of an unknown, possibly hostile organisation.

" _We_?" Peggy asked sharply, staring at him.

He shrugged one shoulder. "I want this case cracked," he told her simply. "And, to be frank, _I_ want to be the one to crack it -"

"Chasing that next promotion on the back of my coat-tails, are you?" she asked caustically, her lips set into a frowning red pout.

"- And at the moment the SSR is hunting dead ends," he finished as if she hadn't spoken. He spread one hand in a helpless gesture. "I hate to say it, but it looks like you're on to something here – we'll keep it under the radar though, I doubt Chief'll be as easily convinced as I was," he added, frowning at the thought of keeping this quiet despite the necessity for discretion – he wouldn't be doing anything illegal, per se, just looking at the case from a new angle.

"And what makes you think I'll accept your help?" she wanted to know, raising her chin and looking coolly at him.

Jack cocked his head and arched one brow at her. "The fact that I am willing to give you a shot at an actual case here," he said, knowing full-well that she hated the coffee-runs and lunch orders they sent her on. He then cast her a bland, half-smile. "And the knowledge that I could arrest you for treason at any time," he added bluntly, smirking at her.

"Blackmail, Agent Thompson?" Peggy surmised in an irked tone, still scowling disapprovingly at him.

His smile lingered as he gestured for the barkeep to bring him another drink. "Think of it as the metaphorical carrot and stick," he told her sardonically, then tilted his fresh glass towards her in a wry toast. "Besides, you don't exactly have a choice here, sweetheart," he reminded her, watching for her reaction.

She pressed her lips together into a thin line, then let out a gusty sigh and shook her head. " _Fine_ , but so help me, Thompson, if you get in my way -"

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" he interrupted mildly, raising a brow at her and feeling slightly galled that she thought _he_ would hold _her_ back.

She gave him a superior look. "I've managed just fine without you so far," she reminded him arrogantly.

He snorted. "Carter," he drawled, unimpressed with her tone. "You got followed from Raymond's club, Roxxon exploded, and the milk truck with the nitramine ended up on the bottom of the lake," he listed plainly, then spread his hands slightly with an arrogant air of his own. "Face it, doll ... you're gonna need some back up here."

* * *

 **Next up – Howard Stark's numberplate is pulled from the Roxxon debris …**

 **Thanks to #CravingHoneydukes for proofing for me :)**

 **So whaddya all think of the first chapter?**


	2. Time and tide

Daniel Sousa glanced up as he heard the familiar sound of high heels clicking slow and steady down the wooden floors of the bullpen; Peggy was walking between the desks with the daily stack of files and reports piled on one arm, distributing them around to the other Agents. He leant casually back in his chair as she reached his station. "Morning," he said simply, smiling at her.

"Good morning," she replied automatically, casting a distracted smile of her own his way as she handed him a few files.

"Thanks," he said easily, taking them from her and stacking them on his desk. He glanced up at her once more, wanting to make conversation while she was here. "Did Krezminsky ask you to cover his shift yet?" he asked, since Ray had been pestering anyone and everyone to cover his shift that evening since he was supposed to be taking his girl to a show and had double-booked himself- Daniel was working that night as well, and he couldn't help but hope that Peggy would end up on the shift with him despite the impropriety of a woman working such late hours.

Peggy grimaced slightly. "I highly doubt the Chief will allow a woman to take nights," she said, her British voice clipped and mildly disgruntled. She then glanced down the bullpen, towards Thompson's empty desk. "Is Agent Thompson in yet?" she wanted to know.

"Yeah, he and Krezminsky are in with the Chief putting some profiles together," Sousa replied, assuming that she had some reports for him as well.

Peggy made a non-committal noise in response and cast him another distracted smile before continuing on to her own station, settling down behind her desk and starting to get to work on her data-analysis for the day.

Daniel, meanwhile, looked down at the files she had delivered to him and started to sort through them; some minutes later he reached a report from the registration office and opened it. He instantly sucked in a shocked breath at the neatly typed words on the report and quickly got to his feet, hefting his crutch as he headed towards the Chief's office. Well aware that he was interrupting the conversation taking place inside but knowing that they would want to hear the news, he hovered in the doorway. "Ran the number plate we pulled from the Roxxon debris," he said, catching the attention of Chief, Thompson, and Krezminsky, who were busy putting together a pin-board of information. "Belongs to Howard Stark."

There was a beat of silence, during which he noticed Thompson sending a deep frown his way.

"I found that," Krezminsky reminded them all unnecessarily, sounding slightly smug as he perched on the filing cabinet behind the Chief's desk.

"Boss, Howard Stark was on the lam when Roxxon went under," Daniel continued, almost thinking that the find was too good to be true. "Do we really think he would risk his freedom to blow it up – or in?" he amended, remembering the unusual explosion and debris pattern.

"Somebody was driving that car, I wanna know who," Dooley said bluntly, spreading his hands slightly.

"Let me take Carter," Thompson said abruptly, making everyone turn to look at him; he was leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.

Dooley twisted in his chair to give him a highly sceptical look. "What?" he questioned, staring at him incredulously.

Thompson shrugged slightly. "She mentioned something the other day about wanting to see Stark's vault," he said casually, still leaning against the wall. "Get an idea of how someone – or Stark – broke in and took everything." He pushed himself away from the wall, straightening up to address the Chief. "Technically it's a crime scene that we haven't even looked at yet," he reminded them, sticking his hands in his pockets. "She can play the detective and look at the scene while I question the staff - two birds, one stone and all that."

There was a brief silence, then Dooley slowly nodded his agreement. "Not a bad idea, and it gets her out from under our feet," he allowed, gesturing for him to go. Thompson nodded once, a brief jerk of his head, and left the office.

Daniel huffed slightly, tapping the file in question against his leg as Thompson brushed passed him. "Guess I'll keep hunting the blond," he said slowly, feeling slightly irked that Thompson was the one who got to go out into the field with Peggy when Krezminsky had been the one to find the number plate and he had done the legwork to run the plates.

"Did you pull any prints from the stapler?" Dooley wanted to know, turning his attention to him; all of the team had been frustrated when the pictures from the nightclub had turned up negative, with not one clear shot of the woman's face.

"Yeah, and the safe door," Daniel replied, glancing down at the file on the numberplate that he still held in his hand. "They're with the Bureau of Identification now, so hopefully they'll get back to me later today."

* * *

Peggy was sat at her desk looking over the reports that had been foisted on her by other Agents too lazy to do their own desk-work when Agent Thompson emerged from the Chief's office. "Carter, with me," he said simply, gesturing quickly for her to join him as he headed for his own station. She stared at him for a moment while he picked up his hat and jacket from the back of his chair; seeing that she had made no immediate motion to move, he snapped his fingers impatiently at her and jerked his head towards the elevator. "Come on, hop to it."

Resigning herself to whatever it was that he wanted of her, she gathered her own jacket and handbag and followed him to the elevator. "Where are we going?" she asked as the doors opened and they stepped inside.

"Krezminsky pulled a licence plate out of the Roxxon debris and you will _never_ guess who it belongs to," he said with an air of exaggerated disbelief, followed by shooting a darkly scowling look her way. "You said Stark wasn't your partner. I'm sticking my neck out here, I don't appreciate being _lied_ to," he told her severely, frowning deeply at her from beneath the low brim of his hat.

"I didn't lie," Peggy told him honestly, knowing that the discovery of the licence plate would prove problematic for both her investigation and Mr Jarvis. "I'm not working directly with Howard."

"Then who was driving that car?" Thompson asked, clearly unimpressed.

"I am sure you will figure it out soon enough," she replied primly as the elevator opened in the lobby and they both headed for the doors. She assumed that they were on their way to question Howard's staff, which was the logical next step once the plate had been found, and only hoped that Mr Jarvis didn't panic when SSR Agents turned up on his doorstep.

He shook his head, looking slightly disgusted. "I can't believe this, I should never have agreed to this plan of yours," he said as they approached his sleek, grey car, which was parked on the curb outside the building.

Peggy gave him a long, cool look, irked by his arrogance and the dismissive curl to his mouth. "You think I'm a secretary," Peggy said simply, staring at him. "Better at filing reports and bringing lunches than I ever could be on a case."

Thompson held open the passenger side door for her, standing pointedly beside it and waiting for her to get in the car. "The thought had crossed my mind," he admitted unrepentantly.

She stepped forward, yanking on the car door slightly so that he was no longer holding it for her. "Well I think you're a sexist, misogynistic _soldier_ ," she said coldly; normally she would not get so riled by her co-workers words, but the fact that Jack had agreed to help her with her investigation and was now pulling back at the first sign of a bump in the road had her slightly infuriated. "A relic of the war who, while probably fairly skilled in heavy artillery, driving a tank, and leadership, has absolutely no idea how post-war espionage works."

He was scowling deeply at her, his forehead creased into lines. "Watch your tone, Carter," he said warningly.

She was uncowed by both his voice and expression. "During the war Howard worked on both Project Rebirth and the A-bomb – and now his weapons have been stolen by the Russians, who have been pushing boundaries against the Allies since VE day, and he is enemy number one in the US," she surmised plainly, stepping forward so that they were face to face as they argued. "Tell me, do you _really_ think any of that is a coincidence?"

"You _know_ I don't," he snapped back instantly.

"Then _stop_ focusing on who my partner is and look at the bigger picture," she ordered in a tone that brooked no refusal, before smoothly ducking her head to enter his car, leaving him standing alone on the curb as her door slammed behind her.

There was a long pause, and then the drivers side opened and Thompson folded himself in behind the wheel. He was still scowling fiercely as he started the engine. The silence dragged on as they pulled out into the New York traffic and she could feel the tension rolling off Jack in waves.

"I assume we are going to question Howard's staff," Peggy said in a calm, neutral voice – it was something of a peace offering, she supposed. She had said her piece and now wanted to continue on with the day and the case with as little bickering as possible.

"Well," Thompson said, drawling his words though they still contained a bite of anger in them. "You did say you wanted a look at the vault, figured I'd give you a ride."

Peggy didn't reply; she had been itching to look at the vault since Brannis had confessed to taking the weapons, hoping that she would have a better idea of a trail to follow if she knew how he had broken in. She had considered going straight out to Howard's primary residence that morning but had decided to go into the office first instead of simply going AWOL for a few hours; Thompson may have decided to work with her on this (excepting the minor spat on the curb several minutes ago) but he was determined to be in charge of the case she didn't trust him not to go to the Chief if she didn't give the appearance of towing his line.

The drive out to Howard's sprawling residence was a quiet and tense one, with jack shooting her covert glances every few minutes. By the time they pulled up onto the paved driveway, with Thompson eyeing some of the more expensive and ostentatious cars also parked up, he seemed to have recovered from his anger and the arrogant, lazy air that he often held about him was back. She followed him as he headed straight to the front door, hammering on it with more force than was necessary – then even harder when there was no instant reply.

Mr Jarvis opened the door – his look chagrin at the overly-zealous knocking quickly turned to alarm as he saw her standing behind Thompson, though he smoothed his features into an impressively stoic mask. "Good morning, can I help you?" he asked them politely, glancing at her once again.

"Morning," Jack said, touching the brim of his hat and reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out his badge, meanwhile Peggy remained silent. "Agents Thompson and Carter with the SSR."

There was a slight pause. "If you're looking for Mr Stark I'm afraid he is indefinitely unavailable," Mr Jarvis said, still clearly trying to make sense of Peggy's presence there.

"We're well aware of that, Mr Jarvis," Thompson replied, his tone a mixture of amused and threatening. He rocked forward on his toes slightly, lazily shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "Tell me, did you misplace anything recently?" he wanted to know.

"Well yes, I did lose a fountain pen on Fifth Avenue," Jarvis said, visibly brightening up and looking optimistic – it would have been almost convincing if he hadn't shot another glance in Peggy's direction.

Thompson's mouth quirked into a smile. "How about the bumper of a fleet master, anything like that?" he asked in a dry, cocky voice.

Jarvis tilted his head slightly. "Just the bumper?" he checked knowingly. "I wish you had found the whole thing. I reported it stolen several days ago, Detective Davis in the 19th precinct was very helpful."

Jack huffed slightly in wry amusement; he turned to look at Peggy with his hands still buried in his pockets. "Filing a stolen car report ... Clever," he allowed, cocking an eyebrow at her.

"Yes, I thought so," she agreed, knowing that there was no point in concealing the fact that the car wasn't actually stolen. She turned back to Mr Jarvis, whose face was crumpled into a frown of confusion as he looked between the two of them. "May we come in, Mr Jarvis?" she asked politely.

He simply parted his lips, looking somewhat thrown. "There is no need to look like a rabbit caught in the headlights," she told him sternly, walking passed him and into the foyer, followed by Jack. "Believe it or not, Thompson is actually helping me with this case."

"Oh," Mr Jarvis replied, blinking rapidly. "... When you say _helping_ -"

"I mean actually helping," Peggy clarified, hoping that this would be the case – it was one thing to sit in a pub with a drink and agree to look at things from her perspective, it would be quite another for him to be out in the field with her making different calls than he was used to.

"So this is your secret partner," Thompson said, sounding unimpressed as he looked Jarvis up and down as they lingered in the entry-way. He removed his hat and held it in one hand, using it to gesture between the two of them. "And your non-direct line of communication to Stark."

"I did say you would find out soon enough," Peggy reminded him primly, standing with one ankle crossed behind the other. "I assume the stolen car report will be enough to placate Dooley."

Thompson grimaced, a deep crease between his brows. "That bumper was found at a major crime scene," he reminded her. "Unless we can prove that Stark's vault actually was broken into and work the angle that the car was stolen to set up Stark, Chief'll expect me to bring him in for further questioning." His gaze drifted over to Jarvis once more, his grimace deepening to a full scowl. "... Which I'm half-inclined to do anyway since he probably has at least _some_ idea of where his boss is."

"I have already been questioned several times by detectives pertaining to the Congress investigation," Jarvis said smoothly, his bearing cool and calm.

Jack's answering smile was dangerous. "Yeah, well their methods of interrogation are a little different to mine," he said quietly, the threat implicit in his voice.

"Thompson," Peggy said sternly, warning him off; he looked at her and shrugged slightly, which she decided to take as an agreement on his part to play nice. She then turned back to Howard's butler. "The vault, Mr Jarvis?" she said pointedly, wanting to get started before more manly posturing took place.

It was Mr Jarvis's turn to look her up and down, taking in her fitted skirt and heels before glancing at Jack's immaculate suit. "I'm afraid neither you or Mr Thompson are really dressed for it, Miss Carter," he said apologetically, making Peggy glance down at her clothes.

"Agent," Thompson corrected coldly, still scowling deeply. " _Agent_ Thompson and _Agent_ Carter."

There was a long pause. "Quite so," Jarvis allowed, deferring to him and eventually gesturing towards the stairs. "If you will follow me, the vault is this way."

They headed towards the stairs, descending down into the basement of the sprawling residence. "Mr Stark will not appreciate you bringing another person onto the team, especially someone he does not know," Jarvis said quietly to her as they reached the corridor containing the thick and unwieldy looking vault door.

"I didn't exactly have much choice in the matter," Peggy said honestly, then stopped to examine the thick metal of the door and the dial that acted as a lock. "This doesn't look like it was compromised," she pointed out, seeing no sign of forced entry.

"That's because it wasn't," Mr Jarvis said as he fiddled with the lock, twisting the dial several times in an elaborate combination. "Our thief didn't exactly walk the items out of the front door."

"Then how did they get out?" she asked.

"See for yourself," Jarvis replied, finishing the combination and hauling the door open with impressive strength.

The inside of the vault was revealed; everything had been cleared out and there was a large hole in the floor, going down at least ten feet and into the sewers below. Peggy walked in slowly, her heels clicking as she circled the hole, examining it carefully. "The night of the break in did you hear anything?" she questioned, knowing that the sound and vibration of the drilling would have been colossal.

"No, there was a monstrous storm that knocked out the power and alarms for over two hours," Jarvis reported, lingering by the open vault door while Jack crouched at the edge of the hole, frowning in contemplation. "Not that I would have heard a thing, I'm afraid the sultry combination of candlelight and rain always puts me out like a baby."

"You're _quite_ the guard dog," Peggy said mildly, still examining the vault.

"Security is not in my purview," he reminded her, making her smile slightly at his insistence.

"Nah, you're just the fall guy," Thompson put in dryly as he straightened up, implying that Howard had set him up to take the blame – which, considering how dangerous the discovery of the license plate could prove to be, might not be far from the truth.

Ignoring him, Peggy whistled low and long – the echoes could be heard all the way though the tunnels below, suggesting that they were extensive. Knowing that they would have to descend into the tunnel in order to get an idea of where Brannis went with the weapons, she turned to face Mr Jarvis once more. "We'll need torches and climbing equipment," she told him simply, then glanced at Thompson. "I assume that you're armed," she added.

He gave her a bored look and flashed his gun, which was holstered at his side and concealed by his suit jacket.

Mr Jarvis looked somewhat shocked. "You're not suggesting -"

"I didn't just come here to stare at a hole in the floor, Mr Jarvis," she said brusquely, wanting to get started. "Torches and climbing equipment?" she reiterated firmly. "Or do we have to return to the SSR?"

Jarvis blinked once, then deferred to her wishes. "I'll see what I can do," he agreed, inclining his head at her slightly before leaving the two of them alone in the vault.

"He seems like a real pill," Thompson drawled once he had gone, walking around the vault and examining the empty shelves.

"He is somewhat new to espionage," Peggy replied, in no humour to defend Mr Jarvis any further.

There was a beat of silence in which Thompson picked up a loose bit of rubble left over from the drilling and dropped it into the hole. It fell for a second or two, landing with a _plink_ into the shallow water in the tunnel. "You know, he's right in saying that you ain't exactly dressed for this," he pointed out dryly, gesturing at her clothing and shoes with his hat as his gaze flicked boldly down her body.

"I assure you, I have been in far worse positions in even less appropriate footwear, so you needn't concern yourself with me," she told him, annoyed at the way his eyes seemed to be lingering on the hem of her skirt. "In the meantime, check for fingerprints," she ordered him, passing him the small kit that she always carried in her handbag, their fingers brushing as he took it. "We have Brannis's body, so if we can link him to this crime-scene then it will go a long way to clearing Howard's name."

"Let's get one thing straight here," Thompson said firmly, opening the kit to examine the sprays and powders it contained. "I am not trying to 'clear Stark's name,'" he said, the mild disgust in his voice putting clear quotation marks around the words. "I am trying to find the covert organisation that stole several highly dangerous and volatile weapons."

"Yes, thank you for that clarification," Peggy said bitingly, growing increasingly annoyed at his posturing and insistence on being in charge after _she_ had been the one to remind _him_ to focus on who had stolen the weapons as opposed to Howard.

There was a brief silence, during which Thompson strolled over to the empty shelves, a deep crease between his brows as he contemplated where best to search for fingerprints.

"So what exactly is going on between you and Stark?" he asked dryly as he started on the first of the powders, not looking at her. Peggy made a faint noise of confusion and he glanced over his shoulder at her. "You clearly know your way around his place, you're friendly with the help and you're sticking your neck on the line to get him out of a tight spot," he added, summing up his impression so far.

"Normally I would say that my relationship with Howard – or any other man - was absolutely none of your business," she said firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument, then sighed and rolled her eyes slightly. "But since we are going to be working together for the foreseeable future to clear his name, I anticipate that this question will be raised more than once if I do not clarify things now," she added, knowing that he probably wouldn't let this go. "Howard and I are very old friends, nothing more. Are you satisfied?"

Thompson shrugged slightly, indicating that he didn't particularly care.

There was another silence, while Peggy examined the pattern of the drilling around the hole as Thompson lifted several fingerprints, frowning at them. "Find anything?" she asked after a while.

He nodded. "You do realise that these prints are likely Stark's, right?" he reminded her unnecessarily.

"Try the floor," she suggested. "Brannis might have hauled himself up."

She watched him work for a moment, crouched down at the edge of the hole as he fiddled with the powders and sprays - then he raised his brows. "Looks like we've got ourselves nearly a compete palm print," he reported, holding the lifted print up to the light and frowning at it. "Different from the others."

"Let's hope it's our man," Peggy said, feeling optimistic for the first time since Jack had snapped his fingers and ordered her to follow him.

* * *

Stark's butler arrived with the torches and climbing equipment some minutes later and they lost no time attaching the ropes to a hook that they suspended from the main light fixture in the vault. Jack removed his jacket and watched as Peggy shrugged the harness on over her pretty and delicate fitted shirt, tightening the straps with deft fingers before competently starting on the climbing knots, needing no instruction.

"You've done this before," he observed as they stood right in front of each other to attach the shared ropes to the hooks on their harnesses.

"Tell me, Agent Thompson, are you under the impression that all I did during the war was typing and filing?" she asked in a clipped voice, not looking at him as she finished her harness and fed some excess rope over to one side, ready before him.

He pressed his lips together, frowning as he finally fastened his last clip, which had been giving him some trouble. "I know you saw _some_ action, but -"

He was cut off as Peggy suddenly hauled on the rope with impressive strength and swung them out over the hole. His hands shot to grasp the rope, taken by surprise; their feet were dangling and their bodies were just shy of being pressed together.

"Whenever you're ready, Mr Jarvis," she said calmly, casting a glance up to the butler, who was acting as their spotter.

Jack pondered her words as they were slowly lowered down into the tunnels beneath the vault. He'd read her file when she had first transferred to the NY branch of the SSR (she was pretty and he had been curious) but had scoffed slightly in disbelief at the contents and list of qualifications accredited to her: expert marksman, highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat, code-breaking, espionage, tactics, fluent in Russian and German with passable French, basic aviation skills but no official qualification, and an academic background in both politics and science. On paper she looked highly competent – but he had never been able to align the Agent on paper to the woman who strolled around the office in tightly fitted skirts, red lips, and pretty heels, answering their requests for coffee and reports in an alluring British voice.

He'd never tried.

But, seeing her in the field now – having argued with her earlier out side of the SSR - he couldn't help but notice a difference in her bearing to how she was at the office. She was still wearing the fitted skirt, the red lipstick and those ridiculous shoes even in this damp and rubble-filled tunnel, but she was doggedly determined and confident.

And he started to wonder just how much of her file was actually true.

As he was slightly taller, he touched down on the tunnel floor a second before her and instinctively reached out to put his hands on her hips to steady her as she found her feet. She brushed off his hands, scarcely noticing them, and was already busy unhooking herself. He did the same, flicking on his torch to look around the tunnel. He frowned, reaching out to touch the wall. "Drilling certainly started from down here," he observed, making note of the pattern in the stone.

"Our investigators found an open manhole cover five blocks away, they assume the thief came up there," Mr Jarvis called helpfully down to them, peering out over the edge of the hole.

"Seems open and shut case, Carter," he said, wondering what else she was hoping to find down here beside the print. "Thief drilled up, stole the goods, used the manhole as an exit."

"Carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment packed into unwieldy crates?" Peggy retorted, still examining the tunnel with her torch and sounding sceptical as she reached out and lightly touched the faint, dirty residue of the waterline on the wall. "Forgive me for saying that seems unlikely."

"... Point," Jack allowed fairly, grimacing in annoyance. He looked around once more. "They would need to know the schematics of the building as well, they didn't just drill up at random and luck out on hitting the vault," he said, mostly just talking aloud to himself.

He felt the beam of Peggy's torch on his face. "Precisely," she agreed, sounding surprised that he had suggested such a thing. "Therefore they must have seen the vault from the inside prior to the break in." She turned her gaze upwards and raised her voice. "You said it rained that night," she said pointedly up to Jarvis, the question evident in her voice.

"It was a positive deluge," he called back to her.

Following her train of thought, he looked down at the small trickle of water, which was barely two inches deep in the very middle of the channel. "You're thinking storm water?" he questioned, knowing that New York still used its sewers to run off storm water. "Would it be deep enough?"

"Look at the waterline, easily deep enough for a raft," she replied, directing his gaze to the smudgy line she had been examining, which sat about three feet high on the tunnel walls, indicating where the water had recently been up to. "All Brannis needed was a rainy forecast, a schematic of the building, and he could float his stolen treasure all the way to the sea."

As she spoke they both directed their torches to the faint trickle beneath them, noting the direction the water was flowing in, and then slowly raised the beams so that they were illuminating the dark tunnel ahead. "That way," Jack said, surprised (and reluctantly impressed) by how much she had managed to deduce from the crime-scene.

"Let's go," she agreed, evidently determined.

"I'll just wait here, shall I?" Jarvis called down to them.

Peggy stepped back so that she was looking up into the vault once more. "You can make yourself useful and devise a list of everyone Howard has entertained here in the … oh, let's say three months prior to the break in that we can use as potential suspects," she told him him firmly. "If this doesn't prove fruitful then you need to give the appearance of cooperating with the SSR as much as possible so that the stolen car report is believable."

Jarvis sounded flustered. "You do realise that this list will be rather extensive," he warned her. "Mr Stark had a rigorous social calendar and his, ah, _personal_ relationships were -"

"Just do it," she ordered in a tone that brooked no refusal.

Jack, meanwhile, was already a dozen or so yards down the tunnel, following the direction of the water. The tunnel they were following was joined by several others at various points so, using a small stone that he'd picked up, he made sure to mark the turns that they made as they followed the water so as not to get lost. It was dark and dank, and several of the other tunnels interjecting theirs had a foul reek to them.

It was perhaps twenty minutes later that the water started to get deeper, until it was covering the whole bottom of the tunnel as opposed to just the channel in the middle and licking at their feet; he was aware that he would have a hell of a job polishing his shoes that night, if they weren't completely destroyed, that is. "Aren't you worried about ruining your shoes?" he asked her as they walked, his voice echoing strangely in the tunnels.

"I assure you, Agent Thompson, there is no need to fill the silence with inane babble," she replied, sounding unimpressed as their steps splashed in the muddy water. "Apprehending a Russian organisation with a penchant for stealing highly volatile and dangerous weapons is far more important than my footwear."

He bit his tongue to hide a smile, amused at her tenaciousness. He couldn't help but be reminded of the last girl he had gone out on a date with and subsequently draw a comparison between the two; she had caught her heel on the pavement and cried when it had been all scuffed up. He hadn't asked her out again. Peggy, in contrast, was striding confidently through the muck with mud splatters decorating the backs of her calves, never once losing her footing even in those ridiculous shoes of hers.

They heard the sound of a fog-horn up ahead and, glancing at each other, hastened forwards. Their path was blocked by a grill, with narrow beams of sunlight from outside slicing in. Peggy pulled the panels forward, opening the grill so that they could see beyond.

"It's the harbour," he observed, already knowing that the storm water ran off into the sea. He frowned slightly as they examined the boats moored up; it was very likely that their trail would end here, the boat the weapons had no doubt been loaded on to would probably be long gone, though perhaps they could access harbour records and find out what boats had been moored the night of the break in -

"Look there," Peggy said suddenly, interrupting his train of thought as she handed him the small pair of binoculars that she'd had pressed to her face and smiling slightly.

Following where she had indicated to look, he saw a rickety and old looking boat tied to the docks some distance away. "Is that -?" he started to say, staring at the peeling paint that decorated the sides of the hull.

"Mr Brannis's symbol," she confirmed, sounding highly pleased with herself.

Jack lowered the binoculars, leaning one hand against the open grill. "... Hot damn," he said simply, impressed in spite of himself.

* * *

 **Next up: recovering the weapons …**

 **Also, I'd like to point out that this story is going to diverge more from the original plot of the TV series (aside from a few major plot points), it's not just a retelling with more Jack – this is all setting up for the story :)**

 **Thanks to #CravingHoneydukes for betaing, and thank you all for your awesome reviews!**


	3. The glass ceiling

Prior to storming the boat, Jack and Peggy retraced their steps through the tunnels and made their way back to Stark's vault; they had nothing with which to undo the heavy screws on the flood-gate and both agreed that it would be better to drive to the docks, not knowing what they would find there.

Carter whistled sharply once they were staring up into the vault and, after a few seconds of silence, Stark's butler's face appeared over the edge. "Ah, you're back," he said in his fussy, posh voice. They re-clipped the harnesses that they were still wearing to the dangling ropes and Jarvis used the pulley system they had erected to haul them up and out of the tunnels. "Did you find anything?" the butler asked, dusting off his hands as they unclipped themselves once more.

"A possible lead," Peggy replied, clearly being vague on purpose. "You?"

Jarvis shuffled a sheaf of papers in his hands. "I haven't yet made much headway through the list, I did warn you it would be extensive, though I did find _this_ ," he said, handing her a single sheet with a flourish. "I thought it might be of use to you."

"What is it?" Jack asked, frowning as Peggy took the paper to examine it.

"An inventory of the stolen weapons," Jarvis explained simply. "Everything that was in the vault at the time of the break in -"

"Get Howard on the phone," Peggy interrupted sharply, still staring down at the paper.

Jarvis blinked, frowning in obvious confusion at her sudden demand. "Miss Carter -"

" _Now_ ," she ordered in a tone that brooked no refusal, her eyes flinty as she raised her penetrating gaze to the butler. "I need to talk to him."

Jack's scowl had deepened at the interaction. "What's wrong?" he wanted to know, looking between the two of them.

"I'm afraid Mr Stark is hunting the weapons already sold overseas," the butler said, clearly a little flustered by her demand. "While I do have a contact number, the likelihood of him picking up -"

"Do it," she commanded, her voice firm.

Jarvis hesitated, then nodded once. "Very well, follow me," he capitulated, gesturing for them to follow him. They headed out of the basement, back towards the foyer, where there was a telephone on a small table. The butler glanced at them once more, then proceeded to pick up the phone and dial a number, his body turned slightly to one side for privacy.

"Carter, what's wrong?" Jack asked impatiently as the silence stretched on, but Peggy shook her head minutely at him, indicating that he should wait.

Eventually, Jarvis turned back to them, the phone still held to his ear. "I'm afraid that there is no answer," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic.

In response, Peggy held the paper up in one hand. "Why does Howard have the Tesseract?" she demanded simply, her voice cold.

Jarvis hesitated, then slowly lowered the ornate phone to place it back in its cradle. "... Item four was fished out of the ocean when Mr Stark was tracking the wreckage of the Valkyrie," he explained softly. "As I understand it, the Tesseract is the item that he is currently seeking abroad."

"I'm sorry, the _Tesseract_?" Jack questioned dryly, not quite following the conversation – he knew that the Valkyrie was the name of the HYDRA vessel that had gone down with Captain Rogers, but he had never heard of a Tesseract before.

"Mr Stark believes that the Tesseract is a vessel containing potentially limitless energy," Jarvis explained smoothly. "Norse legend tells that it was left on earth by the gods, before it was claimed by Johann Shmidt during the war."

"It was HYDRA's secret weapon," Peggy added, still looking like she had swallowed a lemon. "The source of their power."

"So the _gods_ left a source of ultimate power on earth," Jack surmised sardonically, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and scowling slightly, unconvinced. "Sure, why not?"

"Did you ever face any of the HYDRA weapons in the war, Thompson?" Peggy snapped at him. "They fired beams of pure energy capable of disintegrating a person, leaving nothing more than a dog tag behind, and that was only scratching the surface of what the Tesseract is capable of," she told him direly – and he suddenly froze as her words struck a cord with him. He had served in Germany for several months before jumping on a chance to transfer to Japan after being trapped behind enemy lines in a blizzard; while he had never personally gone up against any of the HYDRA weapons, his fellow soldiers told chilling stories about the ' _blue devils_ ,' as the weapons were dubbed, that had slain so many of their comrades. "God only knows what could be unleashed if it was weaponised again; trust me when I say that the fact that this item is missing is colossally dangerous," she added, shaking her head slightly.

She then turned back to Mr Jarvis, her chin raised and the set of his shoulders determined. "Get Howard, get him back in the country," she ordered firmly, glancing at Jack once more. "Finding this weapon is our top priority."

And with that, she turned on her heel and headed out of the front door, into the late morning sunshine. Jack trailed in her wake, noting the mud splatters from the muddy tunnel that decorated the backs of her stockings.

"I want to see him," Jack said firmly as they walked towards his car, which was still parked up on the driveway; Peggy glanced at him. "Stark," he clarified, biting out the name out of habit "When Stark is back in the country, I'm gonna want to see him."

She had the audacity to shake her head at his demand. "I'm not sure that's the best idea," she told him, opening the passenger side door.

He quickly reached past her to slam it shut before she could make a move to get in; she turned to him in surprise, finding her back against the car and Jack dangerously close to looming over her. "I am giving you a long leash here, Carter," he reminded her sternly. "You've made some good calls and I think you're on to something … But don't forget that I am calling the shots here - you _will_ meet me halfway or I'll go to Dooley," he said, giving her an ultimatum.

Her jaw was clenched, looking like she was biting her tongue. "Well," she said tightly. "I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

* * *

Thompson parked up the car just in sight of the boat and the two of them had watched for nearly half an hour, waiting for any activity, but thus far had seen nothing. Jack was getting visibly fidgety, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he stared out of the front window. "Nothing," he said eventually, not breaking his gaze and speaking for the first time in a while.

"She's still connected to the electrics, so someone is using her," Peggy pointed out, checking that her gun was loaded and clicking off the safety.

Jack quickly got out of the car, clearly eager to scope the boat. "Let's see who's home," he suggested, pulling his own weapon from his holster.

They both crept up the narrow gangway, their eyes questing from side to side for any hint of movement, and made their way up onto the _Heartbreaker_. By wordless signal, they quickly split up; Thompson slunk around the outer deck, whereas Peggy ducked inside.

Still there was nothing, with no sign of any inhabitants on the boat. Peggy was starting to think it was a dead-end until she saw the ladder leading down to the lower level. It was a large, barren storeroom in the hull of the boat, empty except for a stack of crates haphazardly covered with thick, netted rope to keep them all together. Keeping her gun in hand, she pulled off the rope and grinned when she saw Howard's name on the sides of the crates.

"Thompson," she called loudly, confident now that she ship was empty since she had encountered no security whatsoever around the crates. As she waited for him, she used a small pocket knife to ease the first crate open. The lid lifted with a audible creak and a glowing green, metal device was safely ensconced within.

She heard footsteps on the ladder behind her. "We're in luck – _Oh_ ," she said, turning around and instantly cutting herself off as the smile died on her lips. It wasn't Jack, rather it was an alarmingly large, hulking man wearing just an under-shirt and dark trousers, with an unmistakable whiff of vodka about him and a small gun pointed straight at her. "Thought you were someone else."

"Brannis told me one of you would be coming," he said, slurring his words ever so slightly.

Peggy raised a brow, using one finger to check that the safety was still off her gun without actually raising the weapon – she didn't want to startle the man into firing when he was aimed straight at her. "One of me?" she asked, genuinely curious as to what he meant.

"You know, I ain't afraid to kill a woman," the man said, stepping even closer and half waving the gun in a threatening manner.

"I won't make it easy," she warned him, suddenly wondering if he had already managed to take out Thompson, though she hadn't heard a gunshot.

"Yeah, he said you'd say that too," the man told her, then pulled the trigger.

Peggy had seen the movement of his hand and threw herself to one side, causing the man's bullet to go wide and miss her by a wide margin. She raised her own gun before he could fire again, sending an expert shot into his leg; he was both a witness and a suspect and she wanted him alive to question him.

He collapsed to one knee and made to shoot at her again, but she was able to lunge forwards to grab his arm, causing the bullet to ricochet off the floor. He used his weight to shake her loose, knocking her gun out of her hand in the process, but she was too close for him to easily use his own weapon, attacking him with quick, scrappy punches. Aware that he still had his gun, she grabbed his arm once again and twisted it painfully until he dropped the weapon with a clatter – only to send a wild haymaker with his left hand towards her, catching her across the cheek with bruising force. She stumbled back, though despite the blow she didn't release her grip on his arm -

Another gunshot rang out.

The man froze, going rigid in pain, then slowly collapsed face first onto the floor with a lurid red stain spreading over the dirty white material on the back of his shirt. He was still breathing, but probably not for much longer.

Peggy's eyes shot upwards, finding Thompson half way down the ladder – his body was twisted to get a clear shot, holding on to the rungs with one hand with his gun still pointed at the man. "I _had_ him!" she said furiously, tossing her hair out of her face, unable to believe he had used lethal force when she'd had the situation well in hand.

"Didn't look that way to me," he said unrepentantly, descending the rest of the way down the ladder. His eyes zeroed in on her jaw, which was no doubt starting to redden from the blow she had just taken. "You alright?" he asked, jerking his chin at her.

"Fine," she muttered in reply, before squatting down next to the man and turning him over. His breathing was laboured, though most of the fight seemed to have gone out of him – he didn't have much longer left, if they were going to question him it had to be now. "What did you mean, one of me?" she demanded, holding the material of his shirt in one fist. "Who did Brannis tell you was coming?"

The man didn't reply, gasping for breath and weakly trying to fight her off. Grimly setting her jaw, she applied pressure to the wound she had inflicted on his leg, knowing it would hurt him. "Who did Brannis say was coming?" she demanded once again, her voice iron.

The man coughed. "Female assassins," he said, blood bubbling up in his mouth. " _Leviathan_ -"

And then the man went slack.

Peggy released her grip on the man's shirt and slowly rose to her feet, still staring down at him. "Female assassins?" Thompson repeated with a deep crease in his brow, having been watching the brief interrogation from one side. He handed her the handkerchief from his breast pocket, nodding down at the bloodstain on her hands.

"Makes sense," she said, keeping her voice calm and composed as she wiped off the blood. "Howard is a notorious womaniser, it is a logical way to slip past his defences."

Thompson wordlessly picked up her gun, holding it out to her grip first. "Thanks," she muttered, taking it from him; she knew that she'd had the fight under control despite the man's bulk, but she was aware that it would not have looked that way since she had lost her weapon.

"You're welcome," he replied, almost condescendingly. He walked passed her, heading for the crates she had uncovered earlier. His long fingers swept briefly over Stark's name emblazoned on the side of the crate she had already opened, then he hefted the lid off another, tearing the nails free from the wood.

Peggy joined him and they both stared down at the weapons, with Thompson holding the lid open with one hand. "Well," he said simply, sounding satisfied. "That's the promotion in the bag."

He made to reach for the item he had just uncovered (a small, round metal device with a single button) but Peggy grabbed his wrist to stop him. "I wouldn't," she warned him. "Howard's creativity knows no bounds."

Jack nodded his understanding, then let the lid of the crate fall closed once more. "Start cataloguing what's here against the inventory, I'm gonna call this in," he said, vanishing up the ladder before she could reply.

* * *

Daniel Sousa was sat at his desk, frowning as he looked over a file that had just arrived from the Bureau of Identification. The file pertained to the blonde in Raymond's club, but they regretted to tell him that they hadn't found any matches to fingerprints in the criminal files.

Reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, he shifted his wheeled office chair over to the left so that he was in front of his typewriter. He fed the paper into the machine and frowned as he slowly started to tap out a letter to the Bureau, asking them to expand their search to the civilian and army files they held as well.

Chief Dooley burst out of his office, the door banging on the hinges. "Sousa, Krezminsky, Li, get a couple-a trucks and follow me down to the docks, double time," he ordered them hurriedly.

Ray grimaced around his mouthful of club sandwich. "I just went on lunch," he complained loudly, spraying crumbs.

Dooley looked less than impressed. "Yeah, and while you've been stuffing your face, Thompson just found the Stark weapons," he said simply, his tone cutting. Silence rang around the bullpen in the wake of his words. The Chief clapped his hands impatiently to get them all moving. "I said double time!" he repeated, clearly impatient as he headed towards the elevator.

Krezminsky threw his half eaten sandwich down onto his desk. "Dammit, that cocky son of a bitch is gonna be insufferable," he muttered, grabbing his jacket.

Daniel privately agreed, hefting his crutch to follow the other Agents out and leaving the letter only half-written on his desk.

* * *

Jack returned from calling their find in using a payphone over the street, heading over to where Peggy was standing with her back to him as she worked on the inventory. "I assume the cavalry is on its way," she said in a cool, neutral voice, no doubt hearing his approach.

"As we speak," he confirmed, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. Dooley had been sceptical on the phone when Jack had announced that he had found the Stark weapons, grumpily telling him to 'pull the other one, Thompson,' but had then realised that he wasn't being tricked and promised reinforcements as soon as possible. "Any sign of the Tesseract?" he asked, looking over her shoulder into one of the crates.

"No," she replied, sighing slightly in annoyance at the fact. She indicated the inventory that she held and nodded her head towards the cache. "It appears that we have recovered just over two thirds of the missing weapons," she told him plainly, actually sounding disappointed.

Jack shrugged a little. "That's still two thirds more than we had this morning, so Chief'll be pleased," he reminded her; he knew that they needed to find the rest, particularly this Tesseract that she kept harping on about, but this find was still a major win for them.

Peggy took a breath, then turned towards him, her face expressionless. "I suggest we get this behind SSR walls as soon as possible," she said, her tone still slightly off. "Demidov can't have been the only clean-up crew Leviathan sent and we weren't exactly surreptitious in finding these."

He frowned at her, recognising that something was unusual about her bearing. "What's wrong?" he wanted to know, since she was acting strange.

"Nothing," she said, making to turn back to the crates.

"Hey," he insisted, catching her upper arm and keeping her facing him.

She sighed slightly once again. "I'm not sure how easily I can stomach you being slapped on the back for this find," she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice. "It feels like I did all the leg work and then you claimed the credit." She shook her head slightly, her red lips pressed into a narrow line. "Knowing Dooley, you probably _will_ actually get a promotion out of this and I'll be sent straight back to lunches."

He slowly released her arm, recognising the truth in her words. "You don't strike me as the glory type," he said honestly, not quite addressing the problem.

"I am not interested in the _glory_ , but respect from my co-workers would not go amiss," she told him sincerely – and there it was, the crux of the matter. She was a woman and she knew damn well that none of them saw her as an equal.

"I respect you," he said slowly, the words tasting slightly of lies in his mouth, then he shrugged awkwardly, grimacing. "A bit," he added, making the statement more truthful – she had impressed him so far on this case, after all.

She looked less than convinced and his grimace deepened to a frown as he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Look, you said I don't know how post-war espionage works, but you haven't yet realised how post-war _society_ is working, Sweetheart," he said, not realising until it was too late that he was probably digging himself into a deeper hole. "Women helped out in the war while men were fighting – factories, nurses, even Agents." He shrugged slightly, tilting his head towards her. "But now the men are back and the women need to remember their place - wives, mothers, _secretaries_ ," he told her bluntly, then dug his hands into his pockets once more. "It's sad, but it's the way the world works."

Peggy appeared to be absolutely disgusted with him. "You're unbelievable," she said, making to turn dismissively back to the crates that she was working on.

Jack grabbed her arm once more, making her shoot a caustic look at him. "So you gotta realise that if you want even a _glimpse_ at more of the field work, you gotta play by my rules," he finished, knowing that Carter wasn't one to slot into what society wanted.

"Forgive me for wanting to succeed on my own merit," she said acerbically.

He shrugged slightly, maintaining his grip on her arm. "It's a greasy pole, kid," he reminded her. "Sometimes you gotta climb over other people to get to the top."

"Let go of me," she ordered, looking for all the world like she would _take_ him off her if he didn't comply.

Releasing her, he rubbed the back of his head once more. "Look, I'll make you a deal," he offered simply. "There's no changing the way the world works, but fact remains that you and I make a good team – we did find the weapons, after all. You can try as hard as you like on your own, but you know damn well that no one will listen and you will never get past that glass ceiling that holds you back." He raised a brow at her. "But if we work together … well, you help me get to the top, and once I'm there I'll pull you up right alongside me," he promised.

She blinked and looked surprised at his words. "You're proposing that we become partners? _Properly_?" she wanted to know, her mouth turned down into a faint frown. He could understand her surprise – it was one thing for him to ask Dooley if he could bring their little piece of office skirt along on a case, it was quite another for them to officially work together.

He tilted his head slightly with an arrogant air in confirmation. "We found some of the weapons, but the case isn't closed yet," he reminded her. "We still need to find the Tesseract."

Peggy looked like she was thinking hard for a long moment – her principals of wanting to succeed on her own no doubt coming into conflict with the desire to do proper case work – then she stepped towards him so that they were practically nose to nose, jabbing a finger in the centre of his chest. "If we do this then you need to _stop_ with the male posturing and insisting on calling the shots," she insisted. "You're asking for my help so you cannot act as if I am incompetent and my opinion doesn't matter - _partners_ means _equals_ ," she finished, her eyes blazing.

They heard the sound of sirens approaching in the distance, no doubt the SSR.

Jack glanced at the ladder that led down to the storeroom they were in, then back at her; he wordlessly nodded once, indicating his agreement.

* * *

There was a flurry of activity going on around the boat. Two SSR vans had pulled up next to Jack's car, along with an ambulance that was taking the corpse of the man who had attacked Peggy to the SSR mortuary for examination. The weapons were in the process of being loaded up in the trucks and Chief Dooley was standing in front of Jack and Peggy, questioning them about the day's proceedings.

"Mr Jarvis was eager to show us the vault," Jack reported "We found a hole in the floor leading down to the sewers and the digging clearly started from the bottom up, which suggests that Stark wasn't involved," he said, which made the Chief frown deeply. He then tilted his head at Peggy, his arms folded over his chest. "Carter was the one to suggest that the storm water might have been used, so we simply followed the tunnels." He sharply rapped a knuckle on one of the remaining crates. "What we've got here, just over two thirds of the missing weapons," he told the older man. "We already know that the Nitramine hit the New York market, but there are others still out there."

Dooley rubbed one hand over the lower half of his face. "What are you saying, Thompson?" he asked plainly.

Jack glanced at Peggy before replying. "I'm saying it wouldn't hurt to look at this from a new angle," he said slowly, aware of the risk he was taking in going a different direction to the SSR's current investigation. "Instead of a witch-hunt for Stark we should look at _who_ broke into the vault, _who_ they're working for, and _why."_ He shrugged and dug his hands into his pockets. "If Stark is on that same trail, then it might be that's how we find him too," he added, knowing it would go part of the way to appeasing the Chief.

"Strikes me as a little _convenient_ that you go to question the staff and they merrily send you down some tunnels to find the goods," Dooley said, sounding unconvinced. "They must know where their boss is."

"Mr Jarvis believes that Mr Stark has gone overseas to track the missing weapons," Peggy put in, her voice calm and composed as she stood with one ankle crossed behind the other. "He was not able to reach him by phone when we asked."

Dooley grimaced. "What about Roxxon?" he wanted to know, grasping at straws.

Jack and Peggy glanced at each other once again. "Sousa was right in saying that Stark's got no motive to blow it up -" he started to say

"We got his numberplate at the scene!" the Chief reminded him, spreading his hands slightly in exasperation.

"The car was reported stolen several days ago," Peggy said simply.

"Well, that's suspicious," Dooley said instantly – then saw Jack's answering frown. " _What_ , Thompson?" he wanted to know, sounding irked with the pair of them.

"Seems to me that the best way to implicate Stark would be to have his vehicle at the crime scene," Jack said, then shrugged slightly. "If you ask me, it's a set up."

"... You really believe that?" the Chief asked, his heavily lined brow more furrowed than usual. Jack glanced at Peggy and nodded. Dooley looked like he was chewing the inside of his cheek, his jaw set into a tense line, then he nodded once. "I'm not saying I believe you or Stark's innocence, but I trust your gut." He pointed between the two of them. "Carter, you can help Thompson work on this new angle, find the rest of the weapons."

* * *

Later in the evening, back at the Griffith, Peggy was attempting to wash the mud splatters out of her stockings in her small sink when there was a loud knocking on the door. Leaving her clothing to soak, she went to answer it – Angie stormed right in the second the door was open. "An _eight_ hour shift and all I get is a whole _fifty_ cents in tips! The war's over, I thought we were spending money again," she said irately as she gracelessly threw herself down on Peggy's bed. She shook her head and looked openly up at her, her eyes wide. "How was your day?"

Peggy blinked bemusedly, somewhat taken aback by the Italian waitress who had just burst in to her room. "Considerably better, actually," she admitted, closing the door behind her and smiling at her friend.

"Yeah?" Angie questioned brightly, looking happy for her as she kicked off her shoes and wiggled her no doubt aching feet, evidently eager to hear the news.

Peggy hesitated, then perched on the edge of the bed with Angie. "Do you remember when I said that with my work I always connect the calls, I never make them?" she asked.

Angie beamed. "Someone give you a shot making a call, English?" she guessed happily.

"In a manner of speaking," Peggy confirmed with a smile – working with Thompson wasn't going to be ideal, but if it meant that she was on cases instead of coffee-runs and lunch orders then she would take it. She had been telling the truth when she had said that she wanted to succeed on her own merit, but this was a chance to show the men at the SSR what she was capable of.

"That's great, Peg!" Angie said, sounding genuinely thrilled for her. She leant towards her, grinning secretively. "And I have the perfect way to celebrate!"

"Oh?" Peggy asked, intrigued by the mischievous look on the other girls face.

"Half a rhubarb pie and a bottle of schnapps," she said, still smiling and practically bouncing in her seat. "Let's see which makes us sick first!"

Peggy couldn't help a small laugh. "What about Mrs Fry's no alcohol rule?" she asked, knowing full well that that particular rule wouldn't stop Angie when she was determined about something.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," Angie said breezily, waving a hand dismissively – only for her face to turn to alarm when there was a sudden knock on Peggy's door.

"Miss Carter?" Mrs Fry's voice came through the wood, making Angie look positively panicked at potentially being caught out so quickly. "Miss Carter, are you in?"

Peggy shot Angie a calming smile and went to open the door; Mrs Fry was outside, flanked by a young, blonde woman clutching a carpet bag.

"Ah, Miss Carter," Mrs Fry said with a passive smile that barely seemed to move her powdered cheeks. "I'd like to introduce you to your new neighbour, Miss Dorothy Underwood."

"Oh please, call me Dottie," the girl gushed in an unmistakable Iowa accent, eagerly thrusting out her hand to shake. This must be the girl that would be replacing Molly, who had been asked to leave earlier that morning – Mrs Fry certainly didn't hang around when it came to filling rooms, it seemed. "Nice to meet you. This place is pretty swell, huh? Seems like one big happy family."

"With all the dysfunctional quirks," Angie put in blithely, having crept towards the door when she'd realised that she wasn't about to be told off. "Angie Martinelli, nice to meet you," she added, extending her own hand as well.

"Miss Underwood hales from Iowa and is pursuing a ballet career," Mrs Fry told them, making Dottie blush modestly and look down, still clutching her bag. "Typically, I find dancers too carefree and irresponsible, though I have always appreciated the _discipline_ of ballet."

"I'm sure you will be very happy here," Peggy said smoothly, while Angie nodded behind her.

Mrs Fry turned to Dottie. "Miss Underwood, your key," she said, handing her a small key with a leather tag that read _Griffith_ on it. "Ladies, I trust you will help Miss Underwood get settled in?" the matron added, casting a piercing look at the two other women.

"You got it, Mrs Fry," Angie agreed, while Peggy nodded her acquiescence.

"Excellent, I'll leave you three neighbours to get acquainted," Mrs Fry said in a satisfied voice, leaving them with a smile.

There was a brief silence as the woman swept away down the corridor; Dottie was still standing in front of them, demurely clutching her bag. "We were just about to have a glass of schnapps, Dot," Angie told her brightly. "Wanna join?"

The young woman positively beamed at them. "Oh, that would be _swell_ ," she said happily, trailing after them into Peggy's room.

* * *

"What have you ladies got planned for tonight?" Jack asked as he picked up his jacket from the back of his chair. After finding the weapons earlier, he had returned to the SSR to help with the cataloguing process and had ended up staying late. It was only him, Sousa, and Krezminsky left in the bullpen; they were taking the night shift and everyone else had long since gone home.

"Aside from being stuck in the shadow of your lucky find?" Ray said from his station, still sounding mildly put out about the discovery.

Jack smirked. "Nothing lucky about it," he said honestly, putting his hat low on his head.

Sousa, meanwhile, was slowly tapping away at this typewriter. "I gotta finish this letter to the Bureau of Identification, but aside from that …" he said, rubbing one hand over the lower half of his face and grimacing – with Jack and Carter's find earlier, Sousa and Krezminsky were probably in for an unexciting night.

Suddenly registering what Sousa had said, Jack paused and frowned at him. "Bureau of Identification?" he repeated.

"Yeah, still looking into the blonde at Raymond's club," he said casually, squinting slightly at the letter and then absently tapping a hand on a file that he had been reading earlier. "I pulled fingerprints from the stapler and safe door, but they haven't matched any criminal files. I'm asking them to expand the search to civil and army records," he told them.

Jack clenched his jaw– those fingerprints were Peggy's and something was bound to show up in the army files if Sousa kept digging.

"And I am meant to be taking my girl to a show, but looks like I'm on for a dull night with only peg-leg here for company," Ray put in.

Sousa cast a baleful look over at the jibe. "Thanks Krezminsky," he said in a deceptively neutral voice, well used to such comments.

Seeing his opportunity, Jack took off his hat and used it to gesture towards Ray. "You know what? I'm in a good mood after today," he said casually. "You take off, I'll cover for you."

"Seriously?" Krezminsky said, not believing his luck.

Jack sat back down at his station. "Scram, before I change my mind," he ordered, tossing his jacket over his desk as he settled back in for the night.

Not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, Ray quickly gathered his things. "Thanks pal, I owe you," he said simply as he headed towards the elevator.

There was a brief silence as he left, then Sousa spoke once more. "You guys did good today," he said genuinely, casting a friendly smile in Jack's direction. "How was Carter in the field?"

"She was fine," he replied vaguely, not looking up from the file he was reading – it was the catalogue of weapons, though he had already read it several times that afternoon and simply needed the appearance of working until a chance to read the letter Sousa was working on presented itself. "Chief assigned us as partners for the rest of the case."

"That's ... great," Daniel said and the hesitation in his voice caused Jack to glance up at him. He was staring intently at his typewriter once more and tapping away at the keys, setting the machine to a new line with a faint whir and ding.

Jack raised a brow, curious. "You carrying a torch for her?" he wanted to know, having suspected that this was the case since Peggy had transferred to their office.

"No more than you," Sousa shot back instantly, then his face broke into a wry smile. "Or half the rest of the office," he added and Jack hid a knowing smirk of his own – he had heard several of the men saying that the highlight of their day was when Peggy leant forward to refill their coffee cups.

There was several minutes of silence, during which Sousa finished off his letter. He pulled it from the typewriter, signed it with a fountain pen on his desk, and sealed it in an envelope. Leaving it in his tray to be sent out tomorrow, he hefted his crutch and got to his feet.

"I'm starved, you want anything from the burger joint down the block?" he offered.

Jack jerked his head in an affirmative and handed Sousa a couple of dollars as he passed him, giving him his food order. He then waited for the other man to leave, not stirring from his slouched position at his station until he heard the elevator close behind him.

Finally, he was alone in the bullpen.

Getting to his feet and heading to Sousa's station, he grabbed the addressed envelope and carefully eased it open without tearing the paper. He pulled out the single sheet of paper and read it. It was a simple enough message: a reference number for the case and a request for them to expand the search.

Taking it back to his own station, Jack fed a fresh sheet of paper into his own typewriter and sat down, casting a wary glance at the elevator to make sure he was still alone. He quickly copied the start of the letter and the reference number, but then told them that the case had been closed and no further information was required.

Pulling it from the machine, he laid it flat on his desk next to Sousa's letter – now came the tricky part, forging his signature. He practised several times on a scrap of paper, making sure the scrawl was passable, then forged Sousa's name on the new letter. Satisfied, he folded the paper and placed it back in the addressed envelope; a dab of glue later and it was impossible to tell that the envelope had been tampered with at all.

When Agent Sousa returned some minutes later with their food the letter was precisely where he had left it at his station; Jack, meanwhile, had his feet up on his desk and his head buried in a file, looking for all the world like he hadn't moved an inch.

* * *

 **Next up – Howard Stark returns and the search for the Tesseract is on …**

 **Thanks to #Cravinghoneydukes for proofing, and thank you to all of you for your lovely reviews – keep 'em coming! :)**


	4. Ace out

_**Ace out**_

 **Idiom – to out manoeuvre someone, to avoid or evade something narrowly.**

 **(mimicking the ambiguous Agent Carter style of episode titles is _hard_ )**

* * *

When Peggy walked into the bullpen the next morning she was surprised to find the majority of the office, Dooley included, crowded around Thompson's desk, craning their necks to look at a sheaf of paper. Jack was leaning casually against the front, facing the elevator, and arguing with Agent Yauch.

"No, no, not a chance in hell," Thompson said sternly to the junior Agent. " _I_ get Ava Gardner, _you_ can have Ginger Rogers," he said nonsensically, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

"Hey, as long as I get Lana Turner I'm happy," Sousa said mildly from his other side, tilting his head to get a better look at the paper over Jack's shoulder.

Even Chief Dooley had a small smile on his weathered and lined face. "I am seriously considering heading back into the field," he drawled, shaking his head slightly and looking highly amused by the proceedings.

"What are you doing?" Peggy asked curiously, shifting the stack of files that she held in her arms as she approached the desk.

Jack glanced up at her and held up the papers. "Stark's butler dropped off our new list of potential suspects," he explained as she put the files she held down on his desk, the other Agents automatically making a hole for her. "People who Stark has entertained at that residence in recent months, and it's …" he looked back down at the carefully typed list and grinned boyishly, "... _extensive_."

"Extensive and a gift from _God_ ," Agent Krezminsky said; he was over at his station, pulling on his jacket and using the back of his coffee spoon to check his carefully combed hair. He turned towards them and grinned in an extremely self-satisfied manner. "Now, if you fellas will excuse me ... I'm gonna go question Vivian Leigh to see if she's working for the Russians."

"No, you're not," Peggy said simply without looking up from the list; she had taken it from Jack and was now bent over his desk, using a pen she had grabbed to cross out various high profile names. "A large number of these women are well known actresses, socialites, and models, they can all be discounted," she told them, running a thick line through Clark Gable's name as she worked her way down.

There were loud noises of displeasure from the other agents and she looked coolly up at them all. "Brannis and Demidov were both officially dead, do any of you seriously think that Katherine Hepburn broke into Howard Stark's vault to steal highly volatile and dangerous weapons?" she asked pointedly, unimpressed with their juvenile camaraderie when this was meant to be a serious investigation. She shook her head and returned to the list. "Concern yourself with the unknown elements, there are still plenty of people to look in to."

"But … Vivian Leigh," Krezminsky said pleadingly, sounding like she had kicked his puppy.

"Alright, fun's over," Chief Dooley finally interjected, asserting his authority and gesturing for them all to get back to work. "Carter's right, there are still plenty of women for you to question," he added to Krezminsky as he passed him on his way back to his office.

Krezminsky was scowling deeply as he pulled his jacket off once more, tossing it over the back of his chair. "You are such a kill joy," Peggy heard him mutter under his breath, but did not deign to reply.

The rest of the Agent's slowly dispersed, leaving just Jack and Peggy at his station; she continued to work her way through the list of names. "I suppose we better keep looking for the remaining weapons," he said, still leaning against the front of his desk with his arms were folded over his shirt and tilting his head to look down at her progress. "The Tesseract still our priority?"

"Yes. The fact that it wasn't among the cache means it has already been sold, but until we hear back from Howard we have no leads," she replied, a small amount of frustration at their lack of knowledge leaking into her voice. Without looking up, she tapped the pen she had stolen from his desk on the stack of files she had been carrying, having stopped by the records room on her way up to the bullpen. "Until then, we can look into New York fences that it might have sold through and practical applications of the device to try to deduce what the buyer wants it for. I've already picked up all of the old war files pertaining to both the Tesseract and all HYDRA weapons," she said, knowing that as far as leads went it was thin at best.

Jack nodded his understanding and unfolded his arms. "Let's get started," he said, picking up the first file to look through.

* * *

Several days later they were still no closer to finding the Tesseract.

Jack glanced at the pin-board of information that they had set up in the corner beside his desk as he entered the bullpen; it was obscenely early in the morning, with no one in the office except for the Chief. It wasn't unusual for Jack to come in early. He suffered from nightmares and insomnia after the war and, when he had jerked awake at four that morning covered in a cold sweat, instantly decided that he would rather be in the office doing something productive than lying there staring up at his ceiling.

"You been working all night on the Stark case?" Jack asked as he approached; based on his loosened tie and rolled up sleeves, it looked like the Chief hadn't even gone home the night before.

"I got somethin' on our dead Russians," Dooley said, handing him a file. "We just got this, the official report on the Battle of Finnow."

Jack opened it and immediately frowned, creasing his brow. "Great, only things missing are words," he said dryly as he flicked through, since almost the entire thing had been heavily redacted. Well, in some ways the lack of words was even more telling than the original contents; clearly someone high up in the government was involved in a cover up of some kind. He clenched his jaw, remembering what Carter had said about how this whole thing was bigger than just Stark – dammit, he was starting to hate it when she was right.

Chief Dooley, it turned out, was on his way over to Germany to question a Nazi possibly involved in the Battle of Finnow and was leaving Jack in charge. Seeing this as a chance to prove himself, he shook the older man's hand as he left, determined to have something of worth to show him on his return.

Left alone in the bullpen, he sat on his desk with his morning coffee and steepled his fingers under his chin, staring at the board of information he and Peggy had put together. It was covered in old scientific readouts, wartime photographs, schematics of confiscated HYDRA weapons, profiles of who could be interested as a buyer, and the known New York fences that Brannis would have had to go through to sell the device. That was where they had hit something of a road-block – when he and Carter had gone to speak to the fences they had found either corpses or empty buildings, with signs that belongings had been hastily packed before fleeing. Fingerprints at the scene had and ballistics matching the bullet used to kill Raymond had put Demidov as the culprit, no doubt a sloppy and careless attempt to make sure no one could follow his trail on his hunt for Brannis.

The Bureau of Identification had got back to them with the fingerprints from Stark's vault, identifying them as belonging to Leet Brannis, and Chief had reluctantly agreed that Stark wasn't involved in the break in – but he was still in contempt of Congress, accused of selling weapons, and a fugitive from justice, so Peggy's friend wasn't in the clear yet.

He was quick to give out assignments when the rest of the team arrived later that morning. Many were still working on the list that Mr Jarvis had dropped off, which was still extensive even after being edited down by Carter, but with little luck they might strike gold and find their culprit. He was tempted to make them all work overtime, just to see some results, but rationalised that extra hours would lead to ragged tempers, fraying nerves, and lack of proper concentration.

It was approaching eight in the evening and many of the team had gone home for the night. Jack was still in the Chief's office and drinking his seventh cup of coffee, having worked over a fourteen hour day, when Carter appeared in the doorway, knocking lightly and making him glance up at her. She was wearing a dark green cotton dress with a deep v-neck and had re-applied her red lipstick at some point in the afternoon. "Fancy a drink?" she offered, casting a smile his way and making him blink in surprise. "We could celebrate your promotion."

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth – or rather, question Peggy Carter's motives when she was asking him out – Jack decided to call it a day and left the files he was working on in a tidy pile on the large desk. "Sure, Carter," he drawled, picking up his hat and jacket.

He glanced at her as they headed towards the elevator; he had scarcely spoken to her all day, occupied with the running of the office, and she had been left to her own devices to work on the case. With him as something of an ally at her back she seemed to have grown more confident – well no, that wasn't quite true, she had always been confident, but now she seemed more determined to do proper work instead of allowing the filing and food runs to be foisted off on her. He had heard a slight altercation in the middle of the day when Krezminsky and Yauch had tried to send her out for lunches and she had point blank refused, scarcely even looking up from where she was working on the financial records they had seized from one of the deceased fences, and one of the girls on the switchboard had been sent out instead.

He pulled on his jacket once they were standing on the curb outside. "I know a nice joint a few blocks away," he offered, wondering if she liked swing music.

She looked at him, evidently surprised. "Did you actually think – ?" she started to say with mild incredulity, then cut herself off with a slightly awkward smile. "Another time, perhaps," she hedged. He frowned in confusion – then a sleek black car pulled up on the curb in front of them, driven by Mr Jarvis, and Peggy opened the door for herself before he could even get out of the car. "For now, there is someone that you said you wanted to meet," she finished pointedly, and he realised belatedly that what he'd thought was a date was actually him being taken to see Howard Stark.

* * *

While the rest of the office was marching to Thompson's drum and running about working on the long list of names delivered by Stark's butler in the Chief's absence, Daniel Sousa had taken the day off to catch two trains down to DC. He had still not heard anything further from the Bureau of Identification regarding the blonde in Raymond's club and, not having the patience to wait for a reply if he sent them another letter, decided to go in person in an attempt to get to the bottom of this.

To say that the Bureau was surprised to see him would be an understatement, citing that the case had been closed at his request. The file containing the fingerprints and their correspondence was produced with impressive efficiency and Daniel was astonished to discover a forgery.

The letter was impressive in its duplicity; it was written on SSR headed stationary, citing a reference number before explaining that no further steps were to be taken, and had a fair facsimile of his signature at the bottom.

It could only mean one thing: someone at the SSR itself had sabotaged his case in an attempt to protect the blonde.

The revelation was a troubling one since there was no way to narrow down the suspects – fingerprints were a no-go, the letter would have been handled by dozens, if not hundreds of people since leaving his desk. The reference number for the case could have been easily found on the folder containing the photographs from the club and his signature was scattered around various files in the office. The letter itself had been sitting on his desk for half the night and most of the morning before being taken out with the morning post and, with the office excited over the list that Stark's butler had dropped off, anyone could have switched them with ease.

And, with the Chief away and Thompson in charge, he didn't know who he could trust.

* * *

Howard was being smuggled into the county in a train carriage; thanks to one Mr Mink, a corporate smuggler, he had sailed into Nova Scotia where immigration security wasn't as tight and then travelled down the coast to New York. They were meeting the train in a large, industrial depot on the edge of the city. Peggy was looking forward to the meeting, eager to get more information on the Tesseract and start making progress on the case, but she was wary of what Howard's reaction to Jack's presence would be.

Thompson had been sporting a deep scowl in the back seat the whole drive out of the city, clearly peeved about something, though had perked up a little when the two of them had dealt with Mink's minions. They were little more than muscle fry, no doubt mainly used as an intimidation tactic, and were easily dealt with. Leaving Thompson to truss up the men and scout the perimeter for anyone else, Peggy went to meet Jarvis.

They found Howard in a shipping container that had been luxuriously decorated, complete with a pool table, mini-bar, and record player. Howard was in the middle of a game against himself and was very pleased to see them, brushing aside her concerns about Mink's reliability with a nonchalant air.

"Right, we're clear -" Thompson said as he approached the open door of the container – only to cut himself off as Howard picked up one of the snooker balls and threw it straight at his head. Thompson caught the ball easily, dropped it instantly to the floor, and had his gun trained on Howard before he could even blink.

"Don't," Peggy said quickly, stepping between the two of them before the situation could escalate any further since Howard had another ball ready in his hand. He turned his wide eyes to Peggy, clearly wondering what on earth was going on. "Howard, this is Agent Jack Thompson; Thompson, Howard Stark," she said reluctantly by way of introduction, waving a hand between the two of them.

Howard's expression turned from shock to utter exasperation when he heard the honorific Agent. " _Jesus,_ Peg," he said, a note of anger simmering in his voice.

Thompson slowly lowered his gun and stepped into the carriage, looking around at the luxurious amenities with disgust. "Remind me to crack down on smuggling once this case is solved," he said with a sneer, looking tense and highly unimpressed.

"Who the hell is this?" Howard wanted to know, still not having released the cue ball he held defensively.

"He is one of my colleagues at the SSR," Peggy explained, wishing that she'd had time to brief Howard on Jack's involvement before their meeting. "He has been helping me with your case." "You bought someone else in on this? Without telling me?" Howard pressed, his anger visibly growing.

"I didn't have much _choice_ in the matter," she replied, somewhat cattily. "Thompson discovered my activities and, once I explained myself, elected to help me with the case instead of reporting me – for which I am grateful," she added, glancing at him and knowing full well that he could have seen her fired, or even arrested, if he had made her involvement known to the SSR instead of joining her.

"You're welcome," Thompson replied tightly without looking at her, still scowling at Howard with his gun lowered.

Howard frowned, staring at Jack in turn. "Thompson …" he said slowly, thinking hard. "You're the guy who signed the order to ground my planes and freeze my bank accounts," he said bitterly, and Jack simply smirked in response. Howard shrugged. "Not that it did you much good, I've got dozens of dummy ones -"

"Oh, don't worry, we've been cracking down on them too," Thompson said with a nasty smile as he slowly returned his gun to the holster beneath his jacket.

"Mr Thompson has proved useful in the recovery of several of your items, as well as linking Mr Brannis to the break in," Mr Jarvis put in smoothly, evidently trying to diffuse the tense situation somewhat.

" _Agent_ ," Jack corrected him for the second time in a stony voice, casting the butler an unimpressed frown as well.

Howard looked between Thompson and Peggy once more, then huffed loudly. "Guess finding a man wasn't all that hard after all, was it Peg?" he said snidely, picking up his bag and slinging it over one shoulder.

" _Howard_ ," Peggy said warningly, growing incensed in turn at the obvious implication in his words.

Jack's scowl deepened, evidently picking up on to her tone. "What's that supposed to mean?" he wanted to know.

"I'm just saying, you're meant to be helping me, Peggy," Howard said with the defensive and wounded air of one who believes himself to be a victim, ignoring Thompson.

"Oh, stop being childish, I _am_ helping you," she snapped back as Howard came out from behind the pool table and the four of them left the shipping container.

"Like she said, she didn't exactly have a lot of choice in the matter, pal," Jack reminded him as well in a distinctly unfriendly tone as they walked along the platform in the direction of the car, backing her up – they were all practically talking over each other, their tempers fraying, and she got the impression that it would only be a matter of time before someone (most likely Howard) snapped and lashed out.

"I wasn't talking to you," Howard shot back bluntly, scarcely sparing Jack another glance. "I left Jarvis behind to assist you. You're meant to be clearing my name, not playing detective with tall, blond, and scowling here," he said bitingly, then spread his hands defensively, the implication that she had involved Thompson due to some kind of romance or flirtation clear in his voice. "I'm not one to point fingers, but _clearly_ you got a type -"

Surprisingly, it was Jack that lost his temper first – he seized Howard by the front of his shirt and shoved him towards the edge of the platform, so that he was held half over the edge with his feet scrabbling for purchase and the material of his shirt clenched in Jack's fist.

"Thompson," Peggy said sharply, though Howard's last comment had left her close to physically demonstrating her displeasure as well, implying that there was something going on between her an Jack and the reference to him being her ' _type_ '. The fall to the tracks, which wouldn't be being used at this time of night, was only a few feet, but the sensation of empty space behind him was enough for Howard's expression to turn from scorn to alarm.

"You know what would have happened if I had gone straight to the Chief?" Jack demanded, his height making him tower over Howard's slightly smaller frame. "I have _solid_ evidence linking her to a truck-full of your stolen explosives, powerful enough to level a city block," he hissed. "She would have been bought in and instantly charged with theft, possession of explosive materials, aiding and abetting a traitor, and probably treason herself, and I'm sure you know _damn_ -well the penalty for such crimes."

" _Thompson_ ," she said sternly once more, while Mr Jarvis hovered to one side, obviously torn between protecting his boss and not wanting to get involved in a physical altercation.

Jack glared silently for a good few seconds, then slowly released his grip on Howard's shirt.

Howard, still looking slightly disconcerted as he found his balance once more, smoothed down the lines of his clothes. "This was from Saville Row," he muttered resentfully, worried about the creases.

Thompson stepped threateningly towards him once more, his face set into a deep scowl, but he was stopped by Peggy's hand on his chest. "This is neither the time nor the place," she scolded them both. "Howard, stop antagonising him, Jack I did not bring you along for you to lose your temper."

There was a pause, then Howard huffed and sighed deeply as they continued to walk. "You definitely trust him?" he asked resignedly as if Jack wasn't there.

Peggy hesitated, then nodded, surprising herself a little as she realised how much she did, indeed, trust Jack "I do, and he has been very helpful with your case and recovering the weapons," she reiterated once again, then finally took the opportunity to ask what had been eating away at her since Mr Jarvis had handed her the inventory list. "Speaking of which, I want to know _why_ you have the Tesseract," she demanded, the tone of her voice changing as she fixed him with a piercing stare.

Howard faltered at this sudden interrogation, then seemed to steel himself. " _Had_ ," he corrected, stalling for time.

"That device is dangerous," Peggy said, anger seeping into her voice once more. She had to admit that it wasn't just that the device was dangerous that bothered her, it was the fact that it had gone down with the Valkyrie, with Steve, and Howard had reclaimed it without telling her.

"I know that it's dangerous, that's why I had it in my vault," he argued back, still looking uncomfortable with the conversation.

"You should have turned it over to the SSR," she said firmly, the disapproval evident in her tone.

Howard visibly bristled at that. "Why?" he asked petulantly. "I found it."

"That was the source of HYDRA's power, it was _not_ yours to claim," Peggy snapped back.

"It wasn't about that," Howard said, shaking his head.

"Then what was it about?" she pressed, growing annoyed at his prevaricating.

There was another brief pause, then Howard sighed again, looking dejected. "… The government wanted my help on the Manhattan Project – the A-Bomb, that's my legacy," he said bitterly as they walked, suddenly sounding less like the drawling, sarcastic playboy she was used to. "But you know as well as I do that the A-Bomb is _nothing_ compared to the potential power within the Tesseract. That thing could wipe out the planet," he said, looking at her intently with wide eyes. He shrugged slightly. "After Finnow I cut ties with the government, I knew -"

"Finnow?" Jack interrupted sharply.

Howard glanced at him and frowned slightly. "Does that mean something to you?" he wanted to know.

Thompson looked pointedly at Peggy. "The Battle of Finnow was where Brannis and Demidov supposedly died the first time," he explained, and she realised that this battle, whatever had happened, was quite possibly the root cause of everything that had followed.

Stark shook his head. "It wasn't a battle, it was a _massacre_ ," he said heavily. "General McGuinnes dropped a gas that I had been working on atop of the town -"

It was Peggy's turn to interrupt. "You designed a poison gas, Howard?" she asked incredulously.

"Not intentionally," he replied defensively, then went on to explain how the gas, the Midnight Oil, had been intended as a stimulant to keep soldiers awake – only it had enhanced the symptoms of sleep deprivation, causing insatiable violence and madness. The people of Finnow had torn each other apart long before a single soldier even set foot in the town. "After that I wasn't going to hand the Tesseract over to the US government," Howard added, finishing his tale.

There was another silence as they digested the horror story.

"Do you know where the Tesseract is now?" Jack asked as they walked, his brow creased into a frown ad his tone all business.

"I've been looking overseas looking for it and, as far as I can tell, it's in Norway," Howard explained, his tone almost friendly compared to earlier. "It was bought by one Osov Morken, a collector of rare antiquities."

"So he isn't trying to weaponise it?" Peggy asked, relieved by this news.

"I don't think he knows what he's got, but he paid through the nose for it on the black market – some rubbish about Odin, you know, the same stuff the Red Skull was into," Howard told them. "He is something of a hermit. I haven't been able to pin down a location or a residence for him, _but_ -" he said, lifting a finger temptingly before continuing, "- there is a gala for a museum opening in Oslo next week," he said in a highly satisfied voice. "Considering that Morken was the main curator and contributor for Norse artifacts, I'd say that pins down his location for a night, wouldn't you?"

Peggy and Jack glanced at each other – it wasn't ideal, but it was still the best lead they'd had.

"I'll look into it," she promised.

"I was hoping you would say that," Howard drawled as they left the platform and started to make their way to the empty parking lot. "I'm pretty recognisable, even in Europe ..." There was a pause, then he added, "You know, the Tesseract wasn't the only dangerous item in my vault."

"Yeah, let's not forget the poison gases, chemical explosives, and bone breaking devices," Jack muttered just loud enough to hear, rolling his eyes slightly.

"I need to know what you've recovered," Howard continued as if the other man had not spoken. Thompson reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, the inventory they had made of the recovered items. Howard took it and scanned it – then his eyes flashed and he tapped agitatedly on the paper. "This one, Item 9, I need it," he said urgently.

Peggy frowned. "I'm not turning these items over to you to be stolen again, Howard."

Howard grimaced, but pressed forward with his request. "Everything else is containable - casualties, while not exactly _minimal_ , wouldn't be _extensive_ ," he explained in a somewhat sheepish tone at what his inventions were capable of. "But Item 9 is an EMP. It has enough power to short out a city - and not just for a few hours," he explained – and then there it was, the smallest twitch of his lip. It was such a small movement that she scarcely caught it, but she had played poker with Howard and the Commando's enough times in the war to know his tells – and, for some reason, Howard was lying about the device. "It would completely decimate the circuits and transmitters. If they push that button New York could be plunged back into the dark ages for years."

"What makes you think they will push the button?" she asked, frowning even more deeply at the deception; she couldn't help but wonder what the device actually did and why Howard wanted it back so badly that he was willing to lie to her.

"There is only one button and no other way into the device," he explained dryly, sticking his hands in his pockets as they approached the surreptitiously parked car. "They don't even know what it does, so trust me when I say that sooner or later some idiot is going to push the button." He gave her a winning smile. "Which is where _you_ come in."

"So not only are we hiding a fugitive, you want us to steal from the SSR?" Jack guessed, matching Peggy scowl for scowl. He shook his head at her, his brow creased with lines. "This is getting too deep, I said that I would help you -"

"I thought you said you trusted this guy," Howard interrupted, giving her an incredulous look as Jarvis opened the car door for him.

"I _do_ trust him," Peggy reiterated as she opened the passenger side door herself. "But you cannot deny that you are putting us in an awkward position here, Howard."

"Don't think of it as stealing," Howard cajoled, pulling a spherical metal device from his bag as he sat down and casually tossing it into the other hand. " _This_ is a mock-up of the device," he said, holding it up for her. "So think of it as a subtle exchange that saves the city."

Peggy bit the inside of her cheek, facing forward out of the front window as Mr Jarvis walked around to the drivers' side door. "I'll think about it," she hedged, knowing full well that she would look into the device if only to discover what Howard was hiding and why he was lying to her.

"Carter -" Jack interrupted, leaning forwards to speak to her, the disapproval clear in his voice.

"I said I would think about it," she repeated firmly, cutting him off and inviting no further conversation as the car started.

* * *

"So, how are you two rubbing along?" Howard asked, breaking the silence as they approached the centre of the city; he was reclining in the back seat, seemingly purposefully ignoring Thompson, who was sat moodily beside him. "Peggy tried any of Ana's goulash yet? Peggy, does Jarvis know you can do 107 one-armed push-ups?"

That caught Jack's attention from where he was scowling out of the window – though in his defence Howard's long legs were taking up most of the legroom in the back of the car since he was hunkered down to avoid being seen. "You can do 107 one-armed push-ups?" he repeated incredulously, sounding like he didn't believe it.

"No," Peggy admitted with a small smile. "I could do perhaps a two dozen more than that, but I stopped because I had already won the bet since Sargent Barnes gave up at – _stop the car,_ " she said suddenly, cutting herself off midway through the story as she spotted a familiar figure up ahead.

Jarvis pulled smoothly up beside the curb and Jack leant forward to look out of the front window. "Yauch," he said, recognising the young agent.

"And Agent Henry," Peggy pointed out, nodding to the man waiting for the bus.

Howard hunkered down even further in his seat. "I thought you said you linked Brannis to the break in, why are they still hunting me?" he wanted to know.

"You're still in contempt of Congress and a fugitive from justice, Howard," Peggy shot back, irked that he hadn't grasped the situation despite their argument earlier.

He nodded at Jack. "But _he's_ here, I thought …" he said, then trailed off.

"Think again, pal," Jack drawled, then jerked his chin at Jarvis. "Take a left," he ordered, and Jarvis quickly shifted gear to obey.

"The SSR may accept that you did not stage the break in on your vault, but you are still accused of selling weapons to the enemies of the United States," Peggy reminded Howard as they drove around the block. "Jack is helping me because I told him the full story, but I couldn't very well waltz into the office and tell them that you are innocent simply because you told me so."

Howard looked chagrined. "How did they find that building though? It's under a dummy corporation."

"And another dummy corporation owns the lease," Mr Jarvis added, apparently unnerved by the SSR's efficiency.

Thompson smirked, looking rather self-satisfied. "Told you we were cracking down on them," he said smugly.

"Son of a bitch," Howard said, sounding reluctantly impressed. He glanced around, his eyes flitting to the buildings they were driving past. "Well, where can I hide?"

There was a silence, then Peggy looked pointedly over her shoulder at Jack, raising one brow.

" _No_ ," he said firmly, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

"Well, I can't exactly take him back to the Griffith," she pointed out mildly.

Howard leant forward, evidently less worried about being seen now that they were clear of the Agents. "You're living at the Griffith?" Howard interjected interestedly.

"Why the hell not?" Jack wanted to know, ignoring the man beside him.

"How's Miriam?" Howard added, both of them practically speaking over the other.

"Ten o'clock curfew, no men above the first floor," Peggy rattled off with a small smile, grateful, for once, for the strict regulations she lived under.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Your hotel is ridiculous," he muttered, leaning back in his seat.

"That hotel is a New York institution," Howard told him defensively. "I have many fond memories of -"

"How many residences do you have in New York?" Jack interrupted, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"Not sure, ten or eleven, I think," Howard replied, blinking.

"Eleven, sir," Jarvis supplied helpfully from the drivers' seat.

Jack sighed. "We've only uncovered nine," he admitted, then started to list the addresses from memory.

"Jarvis, the Grand Street residence," Howard ordered once he had finished and they took a right towards the Lincoln Tunnel. He sighed deeply. "I hate New Jersey," he added petulantly.

"Miss Carter, would you like me to drop you at the Griffith?" Mr Jarvis offered genially as they drove.

"Yes, though around the block will be fine," Peggy replied, knowing that she would have to sneak in through one of the tunnels in the cellar since it was approaching the early hours of the morning.

"Thought you said you had a ten o'clock curfew," Jack said questioningly from the back seat, checking his watch.

"That won't be a problem," she replied, casting a sly smile back at him. He raised one eyebrow, evidently intrigued by her tone. She turned to face out of the front window once more, her tone smug. "I successfully infiltrated Castle Kaufmann during the war, so trust me when I say the Griffith poses little challenge."

* * *

They dropped Peggy off round the block from her hotel and Jack clenched his jaw as she left, feeling mildly uncomfortable to be left alone with Stark's butler and the man himself. Stark had been something of a shock to him. He had expected the dapper, sarcastic playboy he had seen in the newsreels, and he didn't disappoint there, but there was also an underlying self-deprecation and seriousness beneath the surface when he had spoken about the Tesseract and Finnow that he hadn't expected.

Jack clenched his jaw, thinking of the heavily redacted file Dooley had shown him that morning – if the Tesseract was as dangerous as the files and scientific readouts they had managed to scrape together claimed, then it was probably a damn good thing that Stark hadn't handed it over to the government.

Stark's friendship with Peggy was also something of a surprise, though in hindsight it shouldn't have been since she spoke of him so warmly. He was used to people treating Peggy as, well, a woman, not believing her capable of doing a man's work; Stark may have flirted a little with her in an affectionate way that didn't seem entirely serious, but he had treated her as an equal even when they had been arguing heatedly. The two of them were clearly close, despite their differences in personality.

"Where to, Agent Thompson?" Mr Jarvis asked and Jack rattle off his address, which was only half a dozen blocks away, in response.

"You know," Stark said lazily, slouched low in his seat once more and looking curiously at Jack. "I've been trying to figure out what you get out of this."

Jack kept his gaze out of the window beside him, not particularly interested in engaging in further conversation – he had already threatened the man once this evening due to his caviller attitude regarding the risk Peggy had taken for him. "I crack this case and the position of Chief is in the bag," he said with bland honesty.

"And I'm sure that's a big part of it," Stark acknowledged. "You strike me as a pretty selfish guy – we could probably even be good friends, you and I, were circumstances different," he added in a drawling voice. "But you got another motive," he continued, watching him carefully. "Brunette, penchant for red lipstick, legs long enough to get a man's mind thinking about what they would be like wrapped around -"

"You shut your damn mouth," Jack snapped furiously, whipping his head around to glare at him.

Stark chuckled. "I was right then," he said, looking pleased. He nodded once, craning his neck to peek out of his own window from where he was hunkered down. "Good to know."

Jack frowned deeply. "Good to know?" he repeated questioningly.

"If you were doing this just for the glory of cracking the case, I'd be worried," Stark told him simply. "You could turn me over and still get a hefty amount of recognition."

"Don't tempt me," Jack muttered, still trying to wrap his mind around how, exactly, he had found himself in this position.

"But you're doing this to impress Peggy – or partly to impress her," he corrected as Thompson glowered out of the window once more. "Throwing her oldest friend in the clink isn't exactly the best way to go about wooing a woman." Stark grinned widely at Jack's frowning expression and nodded once more, returning his gaze to his own window. "So yeah, that's good to know."

* * *

 **Next up – our heroes are off to Norway to investigate the Tesseract …**

 **(So things will really start deviating from the original after the next chapter!)**

 **Big thank you to #CravingHoneydukes for proofing for me, and thank you all for your reviews – keep 'em coming and let me know what you all want to see in coming chapters! :D**


	5. The Blitzkrieg Button

It was well past six o'clock in the evening when Jack glanced up from the dossier he was working on and saw Peggy walking down the corridor towards the elevator, a brown leather handbag looped around her wrist. His brow furrowed at the sight of her, having thought that she had clocked out nearly half an hour ago - then his frown deepened to a full-on scowled as he realised that she had just come from the direction of the lab, where the Stark weapons were being kept.

Getting to his feet, he stalked after her and caught up just as she was passing the interrogation room, grabbing her arm and pulling her to a halt in the corridor. "Something you wanna tell me?" he asked in a low, dangerous voice.

She didn't reply, looking almost shaken as she blinked up at him.

Jack glanced around them, seeing only a small handful of agents still in the bullpen. Not wanting this conversation to be overheard, he pulled her into the interrogation room, closing the door behind them for privacy and making sure the blind was down. Surprisingly, she didn't protest as he seized the brown bag from her hands and rooted through it. He quickly found the device and held it up between them. "Is this the mock up or the original?" he demanded, already guessing the answer since she had come from the lab.

"The original," she confirmed, looking at it in his hand.

" _Dammit_ Carter," he bit out, frustrated and, inexplicably, disappointed in her – he had been there when Stark had asked her about the weapon and he'd thought she would at least _talk_ to him before taking action. "You didn't have to steal it just because he asked you to, that doesn't do anything to clear his name or stop Leviathan," he lectured her, then paused as he realised that her eyes were still fixed on the device, almost as if she was worried he was going to break it or accidentally set it off. "What's wrong?" he asked bluntly.

She blinked and raised her gaze to his. "I didn't steal it because he asked me to," she told him, her normally clipped and assertive voice curiously sad. "I did it because Howard is one of my oldest friends and I could _tell_ that he was lying," she said, surprising him with this revelation. "It's not an EMP."

He looked warily down at the device in his hands. "... What is it?" he wanted to know, knowing full well what Stark was capable of after everything that had happened with the nitramine. She didn't reply and he looked at her once more, startled to find her expression so broken looking. "Carter, what is it?" he asked again, softer this time.

There was a long pause, then she silently gestured for him to press the button. He gave her a sharp, wary look before slowly sliding the metal catch up with some trepidation – there was a small snick and a hiss of air as the device opened, revealing a tiny, innocuous vial secured in the centre.

"I was working at the SSR to uphold democracy, but I think I lost sight of that running around like some kind of corporate spy," Peggy said softly, her eyes fixed on the vial as she slowly shook her head. "I'm done."

"Done?" Jack repeated, carefully lifting the vial between two fingers to get a better look at it. It contained a viscous, dark red liquid, but knowing Stark it could be anything – an acid that could eat through flesh or metal, a chemical explosive, untraceable poison …

"Done pandering to Howard's whims," Peggy explained, a small amount of anger seeping into her voice. "He didn't believe in me, he didn't even trust me enough to tell me the truth, he just wanted another toy to manipulate."

Jack had his chin lowered, but flicked his eyes up to look at her, the vial still held between two fingers. "What's in the vial?" he asked her once more, knowing that it had to be something big to rattle Peggy's cage like this.

She bit out a small huff and tilted her head slightly. "I'm not certain," she hedged, a note of frustration in her voice.

"But you have a suspicion," he prompted.

Peggy sighed properly and briefly pressed her dark red lips together. "After Project Rebirth twelve samples were taken," she said plainly, with the air of one giving a report. "Eleven went to the US government, which were squandered, and one went to Howard." She paused and took a deep breath. "If I'm right, then that is the last sample of Captain Steve Rogers' blood."

The silence between them was deafening; Jack slowly placed the vial back in its holder and carefully closed the device once more.

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked, trying his damned hardest to keep his voice level as he held the metal container back out to her. They may joke around the office that she had been Captain America's squeeze during the war, but for the first time Jack realised just how much she had lost when the Valkyrie went down over the Arctic. There was no body, the coffin that they had buried in a State funeral picketed by the media had been empty.

That vial was all she had left of him.

Their fingers brushed as she took it from him. "Keep it safe," she said, the smallest catch in her voice as she carefully placed it in her bag.

His hands empty once more, he shoved them deep in his trouser pockets to cover the awkwardness he felt. "... You look like you could use a coffee," he said, noting how her normally porcelain skin seemed even paler than usual.

"I don't drink coffee," she reminded him, frowning a little.

"How about bourbon?" he countered, upping his offer. "Chief keeps a bottle in his bottom drawer."

She looked at him for a long moment, then slowly shook her head. "Not tonight, Jack," she told him simply.

He hesitated, wondering if he should just let this go, and then decided to press her further – she seemed so subdued from her usual poised and confident self and he didn't think being alone right now would be good for her.

"Come on, I need to show you what I pulled on Osva Morken anyway," he said, jerking his head towards the door and opening it for them. He paused in the doorway, looking pointedly back at her. "You here to work or just to steal from the SSR?"

To his surprise, a small smile crept up her face and she shook her head slightly as she followed him from the interrogation room. They headed over towards Dooley's office, which Jack had commandeered while their boss was away, with none of the agents still in the bullpen paying them much attention.

"No glasses, I'm afraid," Jack said, picking up two coffee mugs that seemed clean enough and handing one to her as he opened the bottom draw.

"That's fine,"she said, taking a seat in front of the desk and holding out her mug for him to fill.

He poured her about a double, the bottle clinking on the china. "You really loved him, didn't you?" he said, not looking at her as he poured a measure for himself and settled in Dooley's chair.

She gave him a sharp look, reproachful that he had raised the subject once more. "I don't think I can handle mockery right now, Thompson," she said bitingly.

"I wasn't mocking you, Marge," he said honestly, putting his feet up on the desk.

There was a long, awkward pause, then he reached over and picked up a file from the desk, handing it over to her.

"What's this?" she asked, taking it and having a look through.

"Everything I could find on Morken," he told her, taking a sip of the scotch – damn, Dooley bought the good stuff. "Stark's right in saying he is a hermit; aside from buying the odd relic on the black market he is pretty clean. Got an address for a residence but he seems to have several and all correspondence goes through a secretary." He jerked his chin at her. "What did you get on the gala?" he wanted to know.

"Invites are all sorted, I called in an old favour from Tromslo," she reported, her head still buried in the file. "The gala itself is going to be fancy though, so consider that when you're packing," she added.

He raised a brow slightly, wondering if he would get to see her all dolled up on their mission. "How sharp are we talking here - spit-shine and handkerchiefs or full black tie?"

"Somewhere between the two," she replied, closing the file and handing it back to him before taking a sip of her own scotch. "We'll go with fake names, but no reason to go to any great lengths with physical disguises, I doubt either of us are well known among the Scandinavian historian circles."

He snorted slightly at the truth in her statement – aside from when he had been briefly stationed on the Western front, jumping on a transfer to the Pacific after being caught in a blizzard behind enemy lines, he had never been to Europe. "So what's the plan, plant a tracking device on him?"

She nodded. "I've already spoken to the scientists, they have managed to miniaturise a transponder. It reduces the radius to just over a one hundred miles, but we should be able to track him easily enough."

He pressed his lips together and inclined his head. "Which will hopefully lead us straight back to the Tesseract, or at least give us further leads," he concluded, liking the plan for its simplicity. "Sounds like it should be a simple tag, track, and nab job."

"We can't go through official channels or we'll end up tied up in red tape," she reminded him pointedly. "We're not going to be on American soil. We have no warrant and certainly not enough to make an arrest – we are going to have to do this on the sly,"

He grimaced and took another mouthful of scotch. "So much for just tracking him and confiscating the device," he said. He then frowned as another potential problem occurred to him. "We could be gone for a couple-a days, what are you gonna tell …" he waved his hand vaguely, not remembering the name of her landlady. "...Mother-hen at your hotel?"

Peggy smiled a little, her expression slightly smug and self-satisfied. "I've been planning for the eventuality of having to leave at short notice for a mission," she admitted. "Several times since I moved into the Griffith I have mentioned a fictitious sick relative whom I am worried about. As far as Mrs Fry and the girls at the Griffith are concerned, I will be flying home to England for my aunt's funeral."

The corners of Jack's mouth turned up slightly, impressed with her forethought. "Yeah, you look real cut up about it," he said dryly.

She smiled slightly and then drained the rest of her scotch. There was a long, slightly awkward silence and she stood up, making to leave – she no longer looked quite so sad and he decided that he'd done the right thing in making her stay a little longer.

"You replaced the item with the mock-up?" he asked quietly as she placed the mug back on the desk and picked up her bag containing the device. "Made sure you didn't leave any fingerprints?"

Peggy nodded, the strap of her leather handbag looped around her wrist. She was watching him carefully, as if she thought he might demand that she had the device over – he knew that he probably should, but argued that if she had it then it was still in SSR custody, technically speaking.

He jerked his chin at the office door. "Go home, Carter," he said, dismissing her, then smirked slightly with his feet still up on the desk. "Only the men have to work overtime."

* * *

Daniel sighed and rubbed one hand over his eyes, squinting down at the reports he was reading in the dim light. It was getting late and he wanted to go home, but he knew that if he wanted to stay afloat in the office he had to keep on top of his workload.

He raised his head and glanced through the glass to the Chief's office.

Peggy was sat in the chair in front of the desk while Thompson was lounging in Dooley's chair with his feet up on the desk, the two of them having ensconced themselves in the office some minutes previously. She was sipping from a mug and looking over some documents with a faint frown while Jack spoke to her, but Daniel couldn't make out what was being said. She and Thompson were heading out on a mission to Norway, having found a promising lead after their discovery of the Stark weapons, and he couldn't help but feel a little jealous.

He looked back down at the report; jealously was the last thing he needed on top of the anxiety he already felt after having the forged letter that had been sent to the Bureau of Identification. He had kept the matter quiet, not wanting to go to Dooley with half-formed suspicions, and had been working on trying to deduce who the culprit was.

Peggy was, of course, the obvious choice if the persons motive in closing the investigation had been to protect Howard Stark since the two of them were old friends from the war. The problem was that Stark was looking progressively more innocent after they had linked Brannis to the break in, and who ever was protecting the blonde may well have another motive.

Which bought him to the men of the office – any one of them could have ties to the blonde and so far he was hitting brick walls as he tried to narrow it down. His prime suspects so far were Thompson, Krezminsky, and Yauch, all of whom had been on the mission to La Martinique to go after Spider Raymond. He could only assume that something had happened that night that hadn't been reported, causing one of them to send that forged letter protecting the blonde.

The door to the Chief's office opened behind him and he glanced up once more. Peggy emerged with the strap of her handbag wrapped firmly around her wrist and paused at her desk to make a quick phone call that he couldn't make out since she was turned away from him. Then, hanging up the phone, she walked down the bullpen. "Night Daniel," she said with a small, brittle smile as she passed him and he nodded in response.

Staring at her as she walked towards the elevator, an idea came to him. He quickly pulled out the pictures from the night club and, with a small stub of pencil, slowly started to darken the woman's blonde hair.

* * *

Peggy flexed her fingers as she descended the steps of Howard's secret penthouse residence and flagged down a cab to take her back to the Griffith, having gone straight to confront him after leaving the office. To say that they had argued had been an understatement – he had betrayed her, lied to her, used her for his own gain. In her opinion he had thoroughly deserved the solid punch she had laid on him.

She could still scarcely believe that he'd had Steve's blood, that he'd had it for _months_ since the war ended. He had stood beside her when they had buried that empty coffin, supporting her in the darkest time of her life, and had never said a single word to her about it. " _I know how much Steve means to you, because I know how much he means to me,_ " he'd said, as if that was somehow _justification_ for his lies.

He may claim that his motives were altruistic, trying to protect her and her _emotions_ , but she knew full well that he would be set to substantially increase his own fortune with the scientific secrets the blood could unlock. Her own motives were easily understood and she had told Thompson as much earlier that evening; she simply wanted another chance at keeping Steve safe.

She hadn't been joking when she had said that she could trust the actions of the men at the SSR more than Howard, her oldest friend – Jack may be an utter arse at times, but at least he had always been straight with her in his previous disrespect and he hadn't stopped her from walking out of the office with the stolen device.

Peggy sighed and she paid the cabbie as he reached her hotel, knowing that she still had to stage a worried conversation down the phone that evening about her aunt's declining health; she had phoned the hotel from the SSR office before going to see Howard and pretended to leave a message from a relative in England. She didn't like the necessity of lying to the girls, especially Angie, but with the stringent Mrs Fry as her landlady she knew that it was essential if she wanted to go on this mission.

"I have some flowers for Peggy, may I deliver them to her?" a pale haired delivery man was saying to the woman in question as she entered the Griffith, standing in front of the reception desk and carrying a large bouquet.

"I am Peggy," she said with a slight frown at this highly unexpected delivery as she approached from behind, cutting off Mrs Fry before she could speak.

The man turned towards her and Peggy was instantly on her guard – he wore an ill-fitting, probably stolen uniform and there was the unmistakable outline of a gun shoved into the belt, poorly concealed by his shirt.

"Is this a suitor of yours, Miss Carter?" Mrs Fry asked, disapproval ringing in her tone as she looked the pale haired man up and down.

"It most certainly is not," Peggy said firmly, still eyeing the man lest he take the risk and attack in front of dozens of witnesses.

"I am merely the delivery man," he explained, brushing their comments aside as he handed the impressive vase of flowers to her, his narrowed gaze never once leaving her face. Knowing that the vase would make an effective weapon if the situation demanded it, Peggy took the flowers flicked open the card lodged among them as the girls tittered behind her.

 _With love on your birthday_ , it read – clearly not a message for her.

"So I see," she said coolly, staring the delivery man down once more, who seemed loathe to leave.

It appeared that they were at an impasse - she would not make a scene or blow her cover here as an Agent, and he could not attack her in front of so many people.

Mrs Fry unwittingly diffused the tense situation. "Having delivered your flowers you may now leave," she ordered the pale haired man sternly and, left with little choice, he grudgingly left the hotel with one last, baleful stare in her direction. Mrs Fry sniffed as the door closed behind him and turned her gaze to Peggy. "Miss Carter, I hope you are aware that as your de-facto guardian while living in the Griffith it is my duty to screen any young men you may be courting," she said in a prim, fussy voice.

"I am well aware of that, Mrs Fry," Peggy replied soothingly, wanting to keep the peace.

Mrs Fry looked pointedly down at the bouquet of flowers, the question evident behind the rims of her glasses. "It appears that these were sent anonymously," Peggy added, taking care to keep her tone demure and calm to appease her landlady. "I have no idea who they could possibly be from."

The girls hovering around the desk tittered at the idea of her having a secret admirer and Mrs Fry sniffed once more, shuffling some note cards around the desk. "You had a phone call while you were at work, Miss Carter. It sounded urgent and they wished you to return the message as soon as possible," she said in a clipped tone, handing her the message and fake return number that she had left for herself earlier.

Placing the flowers on the desk, Peggy stepped to the side to use the hall phone, preparing for the small piece of acting that she now had to do to secure herself several nights of freedom from the Griffith. She glanced warily out of the front doors as she dialled. There was no sign of the pale haired man who had delivered the flowers but she knew full well what his presence had meant - the Griffith was being watched and she was clearly a target.

* * *

On the morning of the mission to Norway Peggy Carter walked into the office drying her red-rimmed eyes on a handkerchief. She ignored all of the other agents as her heels clicked down the bullpen, settled at her desk, and pulled out a compact mirror to fix her smudged make-up.

It was clear to everyone that she had been crying.

"What's up with Carter?" Sousa said quietly to Krezminsky as she passed them, looking worriedly at her.

Jack glanced up at her and quickly stifled a knowing grin before looking back down at his report. "Five bucks says she's faking it," he drawled casually.

Sousa looked chagrined. "Jesus Jack, do you have to be so callous?" he asked with a note of disgust in his voice.

"That's the bet, take it or leave it," Jack said with a slight shrug, picking up his coffee mug to take a sip.

"I'll take that bet," Krezminsky chimed in, then waved a brown paper bag from a bakery that was sat on his desk. "And I'll raise you this bag of doughnuts against what's left of the scotch you filched form Dooley the other night," he added.

"Done," Jack said instantly, nodding his agreement and snapping the report closed.

"Peg-leg here can settle for us," Krezminsky said, jerking his chin at Daniel, who gave him a baleful look in response to the name. "Go on, see if she's okay."

Not one to pass up an opportunity to speak to Peggy with the torch he was carrying for her, Sousa slowly limped towards her station. "Carter?" he said cautiously, getting her attention from where she was busy with the compact mirror, running the tip of one finger under her eye to repair the smudges. "What's wrong?"

"Hmm?" she replied, glancing questioningly up at him.

"You look …"

"Oh, my fictitious aunt just died," Peggy said with a slight laugh, her voice as clipped and assertive as ever. "I can't very well tell my landlady that I'm off on a covert mission, so she thinks I will be flying out to England this morning to attend a funeral. I just had to say goodbye to Angie and Dottie so a few tears were necessary," she said, then cast Daniel a small smile as she snapped the compact closed. "But it's sweet of you to be concerned."

Jack grinned at Krezminsky. "Pay up," he said smugly.

"Dammit," Ray muttered, reaching into his pocket for the cash and shoving the bag of doughnuts across the desk towards him.

Peggy had her eyes narrowed, watching him carefully as he sauntered towards her with the bag of doughnuts in his hand and some files under his arm. "Was I the subject of a bet?" she wanted to know, mild disapproval in her tone.

"Maybe," he answered with deliberate vagueness, sitting on the edge of her desk as he surveyed the bullpen. "It was a risk after last time though."

"Last time?" she asked questioningly.

"Lost ten bucks to Sousa on that DiMaggio bet," he reminded her, then held the paper bag in her direction. "Here, you can share in the spoils," he added, offering her a doughnut.

Peggy smiled slightly. "You should probably find a way to get your money back," she told him quietly – Jack made a noise of incomprehension and she elaborated. "Joe DiMaggio, the so called 'Yankee Clipper,' has led New York to victory in the past nine titles," she said, flooring him with her knowledge; she took a large bite out of a pastry while he gaped at her. "And by the way, it wasn't him in the picture," she added inelegantly around her mouthful.

"I knew it," he muttered, having been overruled by the Chief that it had been the baseball player in the club that night. He then shot a look at Peggy once more. "Why did you lie?" he wanted to know.

She raised a brow at him and swallowed her mouthful of food. "You forget I was the blonde in those photos you were all studying so intently," she reminded him in a soft, but pointed voice.

"Huh, ' _I don't follow boxing,_ '" Jack said, making his voice high and faux-British as he imitated her. "Not bad, Carter," he allowed. He glanced down at the carpet bag beside her desk as he took a sip of his morning coffee. "You ready to go?" he asked, since they would be heading to Norway straight from work.

"Just need to pick up my tactical gear and the transponder from the lab," she confirmed.

He nodded. "We're staying late after work, wheels up at twenty-one-hundred hours tonight, so we can kip on the plane," he told her and checked his watch, quickly working out the flight time and time difference to Europe. "With the time difference that should get us into Oslo with enough time to check in to the hotel and change before the gala." Shifting the files he still had under one arm, he fished one out and handed it to her. "Here's the finalised dossier for the mission."

There was a brief silence as she flicked through, then she raised her unimpressed gaze to his. "A double room, Thompson?" she asked, a clear note of warning in her voice as she found the reservation for a room in the hotel where the majority of the gala guests were staying.

"Come off it, Carter," he brushed off, having known full well how she would react when he'd made the booking. "It's not like we'll actually be staying there, it's for appearances sake."

She sighed heavily, still not convinced, and closed the dossier. "I realise that we are masquerading as a couple on this mission, but that is no excuse to take liberties, do you understand?" she asked, her tone implicit with threat if he didn't take her warning seriously.

He grinned down at her from his perch on her desk. "What kind of guy do you think I am?"

"The kind that probably has yet another bet going with Krezminsky regarding how far you can get on this mission," she retorted instantly, not missing a beat.

He opened his mouth to refute that, and then remembered hearing Agents Henry, Yauch, and Krezminsky complaining bitterly that he got to go play in the field with Carter when news of their mission had broke around the office, what they would like to do if they were in his shoes, and wagers of just how far he would be able to get with the supposedly frigid and untouchable Agent Carter.

He closed his mouth and then wisely decided to change the subject. "How did it go with Stark?" he wanted to know, taking care to keep his voice low so as not to be overheard.

"We're currently not speaking," Peggy said coolly as she organised the stack of files on her desk – Jack raised a questioning brow at her lofty tone, waiting for her to elaborate. "I gave him a black eye," she admitted, sounding an odd mixture of betrayed and self-satisfied.

"'Atta girl," Jack said with a proud grin, pleased to hear that she had knocked the arrogant and infuriating Howard Stark down a peg or two.

Any further conversation was cut off when the elevator doors at the far end of the bullpen opened to reveal Chief Dooley, looking tired and travel-worn as he headed towards his office. Knowing he had to report to his superior and debrief on everything that had happened since he had been in charge, Jack hopped off Peggy's desk to follow him as he passed them. "Twenty-one-hundred-hours, Carter," he reminded her, before vanishing into the Chief's office after their boss.

* * *

Checking her hair one last time to make sure it was perfectly done in the style currently favoured by the Americans, Dottie left her rented room, pulling the door closed behind her to lock it – only to pause at the sight of a man attempting to break into the room next door. "Hey Mister, are you lost?" she asked in her flawless Iowa accent. She knew full well that someone trying to enter Peggy Carter's room did not bode well for her own mission; she was currently shadowing the spy and federal agent for the US government and didn't believe for one minute that she had flown to England that morning for a funeral.

"Young woman, return to your room," the man ordered, attempting to brush her away as he turned his shoulder to hide what he was doing.

"Are you looking for Peggy?" Dottie pressed, maintaining her innocent demeanour as she stepped forward, analysing the situation. The man was probably armed and somewhat proficient at combat, but she knew all to well that he would not be as good as her.

"Return to your room, please," the man said, carefully articulating every word as he raised a gun and pointed it threateningly at her.

She cocked her head to look at it – it had six individual barrels and looked to be automatically loading, much more efficient than the Kovorin TK she was currently using. "Is that pistol an automatic?" she breathed covetously, then raised her steely gaze to look at the man holding the gun. "I _want_ that," she said firmly, the only warning she gave him.

The man didn't have time to fire so much as a single round before she had scaled the wall and snapped his neck.

* * *

Peggy stowed her bags in one of the compartments on the SSR's plane and then rapped on the door to the cockpit, indicating to the pilot that they were ready to go. Despite finally – _finally_ – being able to get out on a proper mission she was hesitant about leaving. The man she had seen at the Griffith had her on edge, worrying if the safety of the girls at the hotel was compromised, though she had not seen him again.

Thompson was already sprawled at an angle on one of the long benches with his back braced against a corner, one foot up on the bench and his hat low on his forehead. Peggy sat down opposite him and he glanced at her. "You ever been to Norway before?" he asked conversationally as the rumbling plane started to move.

"I know Oslo reasonably well," she said distractedly, still thinking about the light-haired man she had seen at the Griffith. "It was near a HYDRA incursion and I spent some time there during the war." Back near the start of the war she had been sent to investigate the armed incursion on a small village in the south of Norway and reports that an artifact had been stolen, which had turned out to be the Tesseract – strange that she was still chasing the very same artifact once again, years later.

Jack was frowning slightly at her, clearly having picked up something being off in her tone. "Everything okay?" he wanted to know.

She sighed slightly. "I have reason to believe that the Griffith is being watched," she admitted. "I have no wish to endanger the girls there, so I may shortly have to look for a new apartment once again."

"What makes you think that?" he asked intently, his frown deepening even further and a crease appearing between his brows at the idea on her being in danger.

"A man anonymously gave me flowers," she told him simply, looking out of one of the windows as the plane turned onto the runway.

Jack snorted, evidently amused. "And you don't think there could be _any_ other reason for a guy to do that?" he asked pointedly, one corner of his mouth hitched up into a wry grin.

She scowled deprecatingly at him. "Considering that the card contained a birthday message clearly not meant for me and the delivery man was armed and wearing an ill-fitting uniform whilst trying to gain entrance to the hotel, I'm going to say _no_ ," she said coolly, irked at his dismissive attitude after she had confided in him.

That wiped the grin from his face. "He tried to get into the hotel?" he asked, serious once more.

"The attempt was shoddy at best, but it is still a worrying turn of events," Peggy said with a nod of confirmation. "I intend to monitor the situation and start making contingency plans in case there is a risk. Worst comes to worst, I will move into one of Howard's penthouses."

Thompson huffed slightly and moved down so that he was lying on the bench opposite her. "Yeah, 'cause that sounds like such a hardship," he said dryly, shifting to get comfortable. He then shot her a look, clearly thinking of something. "Thought you and Stark weren't talking?" he added questioningly as he lay down.

Peggy paused, then grimaced. "Well that throws a spanner in the works," she muttered, not having considered the fact that she was still furious with her old friend.

"You know, I have a guest room," Jack offered, taking off his hat and loosening his tie slightly.

She frowned at him. "I think I would sooner live as a target in a watched building, Thompson," she said with blunt honesty – they may got on passably well while out in the field, but there was no way on Gods green earth that she would ever consider living with him.

"Words hurt, Carter," he said mildly, stretching out on the bench as the plane started to gain speed down the runway. He folded one arm behind his head and put his hat over his eyes. "Wake me when we get to Oslo."

* * *

Back in the dim New York office of the SSR, Chief Dooley glanced up as the typewriter they found in Demidov's hotel room turned itself on and started typing out a message.

* * *

 **Sorry for the very long wait between chapters – I've moved into my new house, started my course and am now on placement in a school, so things have been very busy to say the least!**

 **Hope you all enjoy the chapter, let me know what kind of things you might potentially want to see in the story!**

 **Next up: Jack and Peggy go undercover …**

 **Big thank you to #Craving Honeydukes for proofing for me!**

 **And now back to lesson planning … :p**


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